


i know you see in black and white (so I'll paint you a clear blue sky)

by acrossthesky_instars



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, POV Bellamy, Slow Burn, kind of, persephone and hades au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-06-10 10:35:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6953161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acrossthesky_instars/pseuds/acrossthesky_instars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Funny,’ she muses, but her tone makes it sound like funny isn’t exactly what she means. ‘I know it’s dark in here, but did you think I wouldn’t notice that you aren’t a girl?’</p><p>He smiles. ‘I am pretty.’ </p><p>(Even coated in shades of charcoal as he is, she has to agree.) </p><p>+</p><p> </p><p>a vaguely Persephone and Hades AU, where Clarke and Bellamy only see colour in each other. (there will be three-headed puppies)<br/>title from Troye Sivan- Blue</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. he's so devoid of colour (he doesn't know what it means)

**Author's Note:**

> literally no-one to blame for this but my own procrastination and yeah, no i have no idea where it came from either. but yeah, the next few chapters are already written and the last ones outlined so hopefully updates will be regular (lol)

 

All things considered, Bellamy had been prepared.

People had been telling stories about the Underworld and its queen all his life- and he’s been alive for a long time. He’s heard about the fire, about its commander- _Wanheda_ , they call her- wreathed in shadows and smoke, and he’s heard about the cold. The kind of cold that _burns_.

Death, too, he knows.

And throughout all of that, she’d been there. The little fair-haired girl of his memory, who cried when every flower she touched died, even the ones he gave her. He remembers her fingers- long and slim and stained with paint- curling around a rose, remembers how, where his touch brought life, hers stole it back.

To hold the rose together- that’d been something.

Still. They are, he knows, not the same person.

He isn’t wrong.

There isn’t any trace of the girl in the woman before him now.

She’s talking to someone, softly enough that he can’t hear her voice or what she’s saying, her face angled away from him. Her dress is long, silvery grey, and her hair pools down her back in a sheet of silvery white, twisting and curling in what looks like _smoke_. Her fingers are hidden, sheathed in gloves darker than any night he’s ever seen.

From her feet to the bow of her head, she reeks of royalty.

The guy grasping his arm grunts and lets him go, and Wanheda turns.

But when she lifts her face- in all its coldness- to his, all he sees are her eyes. Like shards in her white face, shards of the brightest summer sky. They’re jarring, out of place on _her_ and in this _place_ , and it’s then that he realises: they’re the first shade of colour he’s seen since he stepped into that chariot, unless he’s counting every hue of grey under the sun, which he _isn’t_. Plus, he’s not sure he’s exactly under the sun anymore.  

And even though the shade of her eyes makes him think of warmth and sunshine and that little, crying, smiling girl, everything else about her face freezes him and his memories in his tracks.

‘Who are you?’ she asks, and her voice is cold and clear and sharp like a bell. He’s proud that he doesn’t flinch.

‘Bellamy,’ he says, and makes his voice just as strong.

When she says nothing, he adds ‘Blake’.

‘Funny,’ she muses, but her tone makes it sound like funny isn’t _exactly_ what she means. ‘I know it’s dark in here, but did you think I wouldn’t notice that you _aren’t_ a girl?’

He shrugs, as nonchalant as he can manage. ‘My name _is_ Bellamy.’

‘You thought you could pretend?’

He smiles. ‘I _am_ pretty.’

(Even coated in shades of charcoal as he is, she has to agree.)

Her gaze is heavy, and far shrewder than he’d like. ‘Why are you here, Bellamy Blake?’

He lets his gaze shift lazily around the room, lets it travel the length of her body up to her flashing eyes. ‘Fancied a change of scenery.’

She laughs, without humour. ‘And you picked the underworld?’

He shrugs again. ‘Fewer tourists.’

The guy at his side, whose cheekbones are sharp enough to cast shadows of their own, snorts. ‘You can say that again.’

‘Murphy,’ someone growls, and with a start, Bellamy realises that the hulking shadow behind the queen is a _person_.

‘He’s her brother,’ Murphy says instead, and everything in Bellamy sharpens and tightens and tenses. _You cannot have her_ , his body screams, and his mouth nearly does too.

Wanheda’s face is expressionless but not, at least, cruel. ‘And you brought him why, exactly?’

‘He got in the chariot,’ Murphy says, his tone half-indifference, half-incredulity, ‘voluntarily. And I thought to myself: _Hey, Murphy, why not mix it up a little bit? Clarke_ loves _it when you do that_.’

The shadow behind the queen growls again, and Bellamy tries not to react.

‘We have a guest,’ Wanheda scolds, but not unkindly. He’s not sure who the reminder is for, Murphy or her grumpy shadow. She sighs, the sound heavy, and the smoke around her hair curls back to show her crown. It’s adamant black and, Bellamy thinks, looks heavy.

‘Murphy, you’ll have to go back.’

There’s a sudden cacophony of noise, out of which Bellamy picks Murphy’s groan, the sound of someone- the shadow maybe- saying ‘Clarke, no’, and surprisingly, his own voice, ringing out above the rest.

‘No.’

The answering silence is, horribly, even louder. The queen cocks her head to the side, her silver hair glinting. Bellamy thinks: _Wanheda, Commander of Death_.

‘Guess that’s a _nay_ on the genderbend,’ Murphy mutters, and Bellamy’s stomach drops, because he knows exactly what they’re talking around.

He’s been alive longer than his internal calendar likes to think about; it’d be impossible not to, really.

Because, every fifty years or so, a girl is taken.

And this time, this time they were going to take Octavia.

‘No,’ he says again, and he knows his fear isn’t for himself.

The shadow behind the queen shifts and distorts, and a man steps forward into the pale light. Bellamy’s tall, but this guy is _huge_ , his skin an oddly warm grey that Bellamy thinks would shift to tan in the sunlight, inky black tattoos swirling along his arms and up his neck, covering all the skin that Bellamy can see that isn’t shrouded in- oddly enough- black jeans and a tight black t-shirt.

‘He’s her _brother_ ,’ he repeats, and Bellamy startles because his voice sounds almost _broken_. ‘Clarke, please, no. Enough.’

Wanheda’s eyes shutter once, and Bellamy almost thinks he sees a wash of pain on her face before she wipes it clean again. ‘I will do everything my people need, Lincoln.’

The muscled guy- Lincoln, Bellamy thinks- lets his face twist. ‘I’m not your people.’

The queen spins round, and even Bellamy sees the fierce flash in her blue, blue eyes. White fire- ice fire- leaps up along the sides of the room, and Bellamy jumps.

‘You,’ Wanheda growls, and all of sudden, Bellamy knows exactly why people kneel before her, why children fear her stories. ‘are, and always will be, my people. Don’t you ever, _ever_ , say that again.’

It’s the first hint Bellamy’s seen of something he likes in the Underworld.

Lincoln inclines his head into the smallest bow, and the fire settles slightly.

Bellamy inches forward, and the queen’s attention swings back round to him in an instant. The fire- her fire- bleaches her hair and skin even paler, but sends the shadows of her into flickering relief.

_She’s beautiful_ , Bellamy thinks. _In the same way that frost is, as it sucks the life out of everything around it. Flourishing on cold._

‘Please,’ he says, soft, and allows the crack in his voice to show. ‘I’ll do whatever it is you need. I’ll do _anything._ ’

Wanheda’s eyes scan him; they miss nothing. He does his best not to look away from her, to project earnestness.

‘Jeez,’ Murphy says, ‘now you just look desperate.’

_I am,_ Bellamy thinks. _If I wasn’t, I’d hit you._

‘Murphy,’ Wanheda commands, almost mildly. ‘Shut up.’ It’s unsettling; it makes her seem younger, more like a person than a queen.

‘You aren’t,’ she says to Bellamy, ‘very colourful.’

_Speak for yourself,_ Bellamy wants to say, but bites his tongue. _Really not the time_.

Instead he looks down at himself reflexively; the queen’s right. His dark jeans were washed out even before he walked them into the Underworld and his t-shirt, too, is off-white, stained with mud and what might’ve been grass stains in a land of colour. He’d been out in the fields when they came.

His boots are black, as caked in soil as his grimy fingernails, and his skin has- oddly- shifted into greyness. He reaches up a hand to his hair and pulls out a curl to stretch it to his eyeline. Even his hair is a deeper black than before.

He can’t think of anything to say, so he just says ‘Sorry’.

Slowly- with what he presumes is regal purpose- she steps off the slight dais on her end of the room and walks towards him. On either side of her, the fire flares higher in line with where she treads.

When she stands about a foot away, she halts and- it’s not even the weirdest thing about his day- she sniffs.

Her sigh, her tiny smile- they are.

‘You smell like dirt,’ she says, and he’d think it was an insult- her tone of voice gives nothing away- if it wasn’t for the gleam in her eyes. Suddenly, he can see the girl he once stood opposite, just like this, only a flower between them.

He sniffs too, trying to smell it, but all he can smell is _her_ , sharp and citrusy, like ice and cold fresh air. It’s a clean smell, he’ll say that for her.

He’s about to say something- anything- when she interrupts him before he can finish a word.

‘I remember you.’

It’s enough to stop his heart. ‘What?’

‘You’re the boy with the flowers,’ she states, and he almost laughs. It’s a very true statement, really.

Carefully, he nods. ‘I am.’ He takes a breath- ‘Actually, flowers- they’re kind of my thing.’

‘Your thing,’ she repeats flatly.

‘Yeah,’ he says, casting his eyes around the room. ‘Like, um, dead people are your thing.’

‘The rose,’ she says simply, and he nods.

It’s _weird_ , having a history with the Queen of the Underworld, but there’s something nice about it. About meeting someone from _before_ they were this.

‘Fuck,’ she swears, and it makes him jump. In that moment, she’s practically human.

‘Clarke,’ Lincoln warns, and she turns her back on Bellamy, cold mask back in place.

‘His eyes,’ she says, over her shoulder. ‘They’re brown.’

Surprise paints itself across Lincoln’s face; Murphy copies his queen’s cussing.

It’s only as she walks out in a cloud of smoke that Bellamy sees it: all around, the hem of her gown is stained with charcoal.

The drawing kind.


	2. hey baby, i think i (don't) want to marry you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> little persephone bellamy meets some new people and sees a bit more of the Underworld. clarke isn't the most welcoming.

Time passes differently in the Underworld, but it doesn’t take Bellamy very long- on any scale- to figure out two things.

#1: Bellamy Blake is a sun-lover, cat-on-the-windowsill style. And no matter what the Ancient Egyptians thought, the Underworld is dark, sunless, and, well, a little chilly.

Bellamy’s not sure anyone else notices the temperature, and it’s not like he’s seen many people anyway.

Which brings him to #2: He’s not _doing_ anything.

He’s not complaining. His normal life is busy, because apparently people want a lot from green-fingered curly-haired boys these days.

But down here, he barely sees anyone, and doesn’t do anything. He’s not exactly sure what the general MO _is_ for sacrifices to the World of the Dead, but he’s fairly sure they don’t sit in guest rooms all day.

Maybe they’re lulling him into a false sense of security, or something. He definitely _feels_ lulled.

Finally, there’s a knock on his door that comes with another person, not a tray of food to lie untouched. He’s not stupid; he knows the rules.

The girl, like everyone and everything else, is shaded in greys and blacks. Her grin, though, flashes bright white teeth. If it wasn’t for her colouring, she’d look like any other person on a twenty-first century street, from her perky ponytail to her worn bomber jacket.

Her perusal feels like a challenge.

‘Can I help you?’ he asks, sharp.

The girl’s eyebrows cock. ‘So you’re Flower Boy.’

‘Actually, I go by Bellamy. Who are you?’

She smiles. ‘Raven Reyes, at your service. Dinner service, actually. Are you a vegetarian? You know, because of the plant stuff.’

His chuckle is short, but it’s there. ‘I could murder a steak.’ _Pity I can’t eat one_.

‘Urgh,’ she groans, and grabs his arm to pull him into the corridor with her. ‘You and me both.’

He grunts, shoves his hands in his pocket, like a casual person who is completely disinterested in the house-palace-what? around him.

‘So,’ Raven starts conversationally as they take a turn. ‘Your eyes don’t look any different to me.’

He snaps his attention away from the doorway they’re passing, one that leads- apparently- into a drugs lab.

‘Monty and Jasper like to make their own moonshine and, you know, stuff.’ She shrugs. ‘Your eyes?’

‘What about them?’

Raven slides him a sideways look. ‘Yeah, so Clarke’s told me nothing. I had to get my information from _Murphy_ , so if I’m way off it’s on him.’

She gestures to the length of his body. ‘Clearly, you’re a guy.’

‘Really?’ He says dryly, ‘you don’t say.’

‘Lowest form of wit, Bellamy,’ she glares at him. ‘And I know you know _exactly_ what I’m talking about. We, uh, normally get a girl.’

‘Take,’ he mutters, and meets her gaze head on when she looks at him. ‘You take a girl.’

Raven stops, as suddenly as if she’d hit a wall.

‘Look,’ she says, and her light tone is gone. All of a sudden, he can see the years he feels himself in her eyes. ‘I don’t know you, and I don’t know what kind of life you’ve had. But don’t presume you know us, or what happens down here, no matter how Clarke makes it look.’

There’s a moment that feels like she’s waiting for an apology that he won’t give, and then she starts walking again.

‘You’ve got to admit,’ he says after a moment, because, either way, any ally down here is better than none, ‘it doesn’t look great.’

‘I don’t _have_ to admit anything,’ Raven snaps, sharp, but then she softens. ‘But, yeah, I know what you mean.’

‘You were saying something about my eyes?’

‘Yeah!’ Raven says, and the pep is back in her step. ‘I don’t get it. According to Murphy- urgh, I hate even saying that- the reason Clarke let you stay’- her gaze slips sideways again, and he feels the question of his sister in the air, is glad she doesn’t ask- ‘has something to do with your eyes.’

He keeps his face blank- it’s not difficult; he feels it.

‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed,’ Raven says confidingly, like she’s sharing a secret, ‘but everything here is _very_ Fifty Shades of Grey.’

He barks out a laugh. ‘Yeah, I’d noticed.’

She sighs, and he’s surprised at the honest sadness he hears in it. ‘It’s, uh, a little grating, when it’s been this long.’ She fingers her jacket, and he tries not to think about _how long_. ‘This used to be the _coolest_ red. Not that I don’t rock it in pewter, but still. It’d be nice to have colour back.’

He makes a face that he hopes says _Yeah, that does suck, but what’s it got to do with me_? Raven gives him a look that makes him think that it’s a little lacking.

‘She said your eyes were brown,’ Raven explains, like it clears everything up. ‘That sounds like a big thing. Or it would be, if she’d say anything about it. Or if _I_ could see it.’

‘You can’t?’

‘Nah,’ she says offhandedly. ‘You’re all Christian Grey to me.’ She considers, ‘colour-wise, I mean.’

‘Jeez, you liked that piece of crap, didn’t you?’

‘Don’t judge me,’ she replies, mild. ‘Not a lot of new stuff happens down here. You get your kicks where you can.’

This time, he gives _her_ a look. He’d actually been liking her and everything.

‘Okay, fine,’ she says, throwing her hands up. ‘It’s awful. Clarke and I had a ceremonial burning of every copy we could find.’

‘Clarke,’ Bellamy says casually. ‘You mean, er, the queen? Wanheda?’

‘Don’t call her that,’ Raven bites. ‘That’s not all she is.’

‘’Flower Boy’?’ He repeats, smirking.

‘Fine,’ she snaps, dismissing him with a wave. ‘I’ll think of something better. But, yeah. Nay to the Wanheda stuff. She’s Clarke to us, most of the time anyway.’

_She’s nothing to me_ , Bellamy thinks, but it’s not strictly true. She’s in his memories, and now she’s his abductress. _They don’t have enough self-help books for this stuff_.

If they did, he’d definitely read them.

He’s thinking about writing one- something along the lines of _Underworld Etiquette 101: Chewing with your Mouth Shut and Wearing Multiple Layers_ \- when they reach the end of a corridor and Raven leads him down a staircase and into a wide, spacious dining room.

He looks around the room first, ignoring the people.

It’s confusing, to say the least. When he’d first seen Wanheda- Clarke- in what he assumes is her throne room, it’d all been very dark and shadowy. Colour scheme: stone.

The little he’s just seen of the rest of the building, and his room, look hardly any different to any other big house, decorated warmly- or as warm as grey can be- and filled with all the usual furniture.

The only difference are the windows. As far as he can see, it’s always twilight outside, dark enough that he can’t make any landscape or scenery out of the fog, no matter how much he stares.

This room, he realises with a jolt, is a very human- and _humane_ \- looking dining room (he’s guessing they don’t actually eat people in the Underworld). The room’s centre is dominated by a huge table, wooden and worn, and mismatched chairs- some velvety soft, some unbacked stools- have been shoved ungainly around it.

The walls are only a very light grey- maybe some kind of pastel?- but are decorated with the same paintings that broke up the long corridors. He skims his eyes over a large one behind the head of the table; he has to squint without his glasses, but he’s fairly sure it’s a black and white recreation of that painting with the dogs playing poker, except these dogs have three-heads.

Wildly, he wants to laugh.

Murphy sits slumped in a chair that looks weirdly like an old throne, his legs over one arm as he tosses an apple backwards and forwards between his hands. He raises his eyebrows at Bellamy but says nothing. There are two other boys in the room, both who look a little younger than him- as much as that would show on their faces anyway. Neither seem to notice his and Raven’s entrance through the propped-open double doors, bickering intently over- _dragons_ , he thinks. Either the Underworld is way cooler than he thought, or they’re really into Game of Thrones. Which, he supposes, is still cooler.

‘Look alive, boys,’ Raven announces as she strides into the room and pulls out a chair opposite them. ‘This is him.’

‘Hi,’ the Asian one says, carefully. ‘I’m Monty. This is Jasper.’

_So civilised in the Underworld_ , Bellamy thinks as he nods and takes the seat next to Raven, trying to look like his heart isn’t racing as fast as his brain. _One for the book_.

‘Shit,’ the one called Jasper says, leaning forward as if to get a closer look. The goggles he wears around his neck swing forward and knock against the table with the soft _crack_ of plastic on wood. No-one so much as blinks, so Bellamy doesn’t react either. ‘He _is_ pretty.’

He’s not sure whether to feel self-conscious or pleased so, again, he says nothing. He’s not sure that anything he could think of to say would help his case anyway. _Whatever the hell his case is_.

‘Does he speak?’ Jasper muses, to no one in particular.

Raven answers anyway. ‘Didn’t shut up on the way down here,’ she says, and Bellamy feels a little betrayed. ‘Must be you.’

‘Do you,’ asks Monty softly, and though he doesn’t finish his sentence, everyone but Bellamy seems to know exactly what he’s asking.

‘No,’ says Raven, the edge in her voice apparent. ‘They don’t look any different to me. Same old grey.’

Monty’s shoulders slump, and Bellamy resists the urge to close his eyes. _#1: Bring sunglasses._

‘None of us see it,’ Murphy says, and takes a big, obnoxious bite of his apple. _Who eats right before dinner, anyway?_ Not that Bellamy wouldn’t; he might be immortal enough to not have to eat often, but he does feel a pang of hunger looking at the shiny skin of the apple.

Not that he can eat it, not that he can eat _anything_ here. _Remember the rules_ , he chastises himself, and forces himself to look at the apple and only see it’s waxy greyness- neither red nor green.

He wonders what would happen, if he touched it here. If _anything_ would happen- if ripeness would rush between his fingertips, if life would shoot from the pips if he ran his thumb across them- or if nothing would happen at all.

He’s trying not to think about the ache in his chest- right next to the knot of fear scrawled with the calligraphy of Octavia’s name- that he knows means there’s nothing _alive_ here. He can feel it like an absence-presence, like a numb limb, or a missing one. He doesn’t belong here and he can tell from the curious gazes of the people around him- even though they can’t possibly feel that yawning gap- that they’re thinking the same thing. Wondering why he _is_ here.

‘Except Clarke,’ Murphy amends, and Bellamy jolts out of his thoughts. It’s so _weird¸_ how they talk about her like she’s a person- a friend, even- not a monster. Not a kidnapper of young girls, a stealer of the life he covets. ‘She obviously sees _something_.’

‘Is she coming?’ he asks, unable to stop himself, and they all watch him warily, like a match about to strike. Or be struck, whatever.

‘Yes,’ sounds that bell-like voice from the doorway, and this time he does jump, hating the tiny flinch even as he makes it. ‘She is.’

He looks round slowly, schooling his instinctive horror and his face into a carefully blank mask.

She looks very different, and entirely the same.

Her clothes have changed, for the most part. She wears black leggings, a loose, low-cut black t-shirt that probably wouldn’t look out of place on his sister, and some kind of jacket-cape thing that hangs down her back and dusts her shoulders with small, lethal-looking spikes. _Not at all out of place on his sister_.

It’s the cape he can’t look away from; he isn’t entirely sure if it’s made from fabric, or knitted smoke. He supposes he shouldn’t be surprised at either.

Her face casts the same jolt through him, cold and regal, like a sculpture carved from frosted glass- if glass was completely opaque and not inclined to shatter.

Her eyes- her _eyes_ \- God, he misses home. He misses light, and colour, and the _sky_. And he hates, more than anything else about this place, that the only place he can even see a hint of that is in _her face_. It feels like the cruellest form of torture.

They meet his instantly, and she frowns slightly, like she wants to react. It’s then that he feels the tension in the room, like a breath caught. Then Jasper lets out a long sigh, and he realises that his breath really _was_ caught.

Waiting for what, he isn’t sure he wants to know.

‘Wanheda,’ he says, even though he senses Raven’s bristle. That’s what she is, after all.

He swears her blue eyes swill with smoke.

‘Bellamy,’ she replies, and then turns to the others. ‘Lincoln’s not coming.’

Raven sighs, and the tension eases minutely. Bellamy still feels it shivering along his spine.

He blinks, and the table fills with food, the table practically groaning under the weight. He barely stops himself groaning with it, and curls his hands tightly into his stool, straining against his hunger. It’s more of a discomfort than anything, but still. There really is steak.

‘Eat, Bellamy,’ Clarke commands, but not harshly.

‘I’m not hungry,’ he insists, and pretends he can’t hear his stomach growling.

‘We aren’t fairies, you know,’ Monty says, ‘we won’t trap you here if you drink our wine.’

‘No, I guess not,’ says Bellamy mildly. ‘You’ve already trapped me anyway, I suppose.’

There’s a silence, and someone drops a fork.

Clarke keeps eating. ‘He’s not wrong.’

_Why not_ , he thinks, and barrels ahead. ‘Why am I here?’

He watches her carefully for any reaction, catches none. ‘Because you got in my chariot instead of your sister.’

He tightens the reins on his anger, just barely. ‘Okay. Why did you want my sister?’

Clarke shrugs. ‘Do I need a reason?’

‘ _Yes,’_ he growls, and is only mildly surprised that his grip on his emotions slips. ‘Yes, you do.’

She cocks her head to one side, considering.

‘Look around you, Bellamy. You’re in the Underworld. We don’t need reasons for anything, here.’

‘You should,’ Bellamy says, even though a voice in his head is screaming and he’s half-aware that everyone else has stopped eating too. ‘Because I don’t come from the Underworld, and neither does Octavia.’ He pauses. ‘And you- you don’t either.’

The answering silence is still in a way no human group could maintain.

‘And yet, here I am. Here _you_ are.’

‘Not,’ he pauses significantly, ‘because I want to be.’

Murphy laughs. ‘Do you think any of us do?’

‘Murphy,’ Monty snaps.

Clarke blinks, bows her head as if she’s still wearing that heavy adamant crown.

‘Bellamy,’ Monty says, turning to him and forcing him to meet his eyes. ‘Not everything about darkness is evil. Not every story you’ve heard about the Underworld is true. No person on the ground is entirely good or entirely bad.’ He shrugs, looks around him. ‘And we’re no different.’

_You are, though_ , Bellamy thinks. _You are different._

Instead he says: ‘Tell me, then. Show me the good in the person who steals _children_ from their families, and breeds terror into towns and homes and parents’ hearts.’

Raven jolts, and he realises, with a shock of horror, that a tear is sliding down her cheek.

He goes to apologise, to touch her arm, and stops. They’re the enemy.

Clarke’s voice is the voice of Wanheda again, steel and smoke. ‘You might have life pulsing in your veins, Bellamy Blake, but you know nothing about this.’

He puts his elbows on the table, props his chin on his hands and looks at her straight-on. ‘Are you going to kill me?’

Murphy laughs. ‘Fuck, it’s tempting.’

Clarke flicks a glare at him, and he falls silent.

‘No,’ she says to Bellamy after a long pause.

‘She’s going to marry you off to Lincoln,’ Murphy says, and Raven hits him.

‘What?’ Bellamy says, startled.

Monty lets his head fall onto the table.

‘No, I’m not,’ Clarke says, and all the eyes of her friends turn to her. She sighs. ‘He won’t.’

‘Let me guess,’ Bellamy says sarcastically, gesturing to his chest. ‘I’m too manly for him?’

‘Too annoying,’ Jasper mutters, and is ignored.

Clarke gives him a look that disapproves in a whole new way. ‘Heteronormativity is shit all on its own, Blake.’

He does, admittedly, feel a flash of guilt. Octavia would have had a similar reaction, albeit with more physical violence. Miller would definitely have punched him.

‘He’s having trouble,’ Clarke explains, meeting Monty’s eyes. ‘Especially with the, uh, _thing_.’ She gestures to her eyes.

‘Christ,’ Bellamy says. He’s never handled tension well, especially when he doesn’t understand it. ‘What is it with the eye thing? Has it been that long since you’ve seen anything other than grey or blue?’

A platter of green beans- untouched- goes up in icy flames. Nobody moves.

‘What,’ Clarke enunciates, very clearly, very slowly, and a bit melodramatically, Bellamy thinks, ‘did you just say?’

‘My eyes,’ He repeats, looking around for support he knows he won’t find.

‘No,’ Raven says, her voice a little hoarse. ‘The colours.’

Bellamy says nothing. Infinitely slowly, his eyes leave Raven, slide past Monty and Jasper and an even dumbstruck Murphy. He lets them travel up Clarke’s ramrod spine, trace the snags of her white hair in her spikes, skim her parted mouth and delicate cheekbones.

Her eyes are crystal, striking blue. They’re wide, guileless, stunned. Open.

‘Clarke,’ Monty says, almost on a moan.

‘Bellamy,’ Clarke says softly. It unnerves him, because it’s so different to the voice she’s been using. ‘I know we’ve met before. That you know what colour my eyes were.’

‘Are,’ he corrects, before he’s thought about it.

All of the tension rushes out of Clarke in a _whoosh_ , and she looks- cerulean eyes and all- like that little girl he knew, on the verge of tears.

He does not like the responding knotting beneath his breastbone. Not at all.

Suddenly, it becomes very, _very_ clear that the other people around him have not seen that shade of blue for a long, long time.

‘What?’ He asks, unnerved.

‘You, Bellamy Blake,’ Murphy says, ‘are really quite unusual.’

 

* * *

 

 

They walk back to his room in silence. Bellamy thinks about searching for an escape route and dismisses the idea quickly. He will not jeopardise Octavia over some half-hearted attempt.

‘Are you going to tell me what that was all about?’ He asks Raven instead.

She considers. ‘I don’t think so.’

He grunts.

‘I told you earlier,’ she begins quietly, ‘that not much happens around here, and I meant it. None of us have been seeing in colour for centuries, Bellamy. Even the tiny fact that you two can see the colour of each other’s eyes is more hope than we’ve had for at least half that long.’

_Isn’t the Underworld_ supposed _to be a hopeless place_? He thinks, but wisely keeps his mouth shut.

‘I haven’t seen Clarke’s eyes in such a long time,’ Raven whispers, so low that he isn’t sure he’s meant to have heard.

He thinks of Clarke saying _heteronormativity is shit all on its own, Blake_. ‘Where you and her ever, you know?’

He wants to hit himself in the face. He sounds like a stupid five-year-old.

Raven gives him a luck that suggests she’s thinking the same thing. ‘Meh, not really. Once or twice, over the years. But she’s family, you know?’

_No_ , Bellamy thinks, _I don’t. She’s a monster_. But then he thinks of Octavia and the house they share that’s barely big enough for the two of them, thinks of his friend Miller, working side by side in the fields. He thinks of Clarke’s wide, innocent eyes in that moment when she wasn’t so awful, and was maybe all the more awful for it, and thinks that maybe he’s lying to himself.

‘Do you live here?’ He asks, in case his thoughts show on his face.

Raven hums affirmatively.

‘All of you?’

She considers. ‘On and off, but most of the time, yeah. Not Clarke though.’

‘Oh?’ he says, deliberately casual. ‘Where does she live?’

He’s quickly learning how many looks Raven has to call him on his bullshit. ‘Smooth. I guess- this is what you’d probably call the nice side of town-‘ she sniggers at herself- ‘between the Fields of Asphodel and Elysium, yeah? Clarke, she, uh,’ Raven pauses, her face growing more sombre again, ‘she tends to stick nearer to the Punishment Fields, Tartarus’ entrance- all that stuff.’ She shudders. ‘It’s horrible there, but Clarke- she, uh, has some issues. Thinks she deserves it.’

Bellamy says nothing.

‘She doesn’t,’ Raven clarifies firmly, and when Bellamy still says nothing, ‘How is she any worse than all your folk topside?’

It’s not the nicest of thoughts. His family are starting to straighten themselves out a bit now but, historically, they haven’t exactly been the best either. He supposes a lot of their selfishness has been inflicted on humans over the years, too.

‘Who painted all these?’ he asks to steer the conversation away. ‘Don’t tell me it was Murphy.’

She snorts. ‘What do you think? No’- she gives him a shrewd look- ‘these were all Clarke.’

Bellamy huffs, annoyed that he’s circled them back round to her again. ‘Doesn’t she get tired of the grey?’

Raven shrugs and looks away, but Bellamy sees that same flash of pain in her dark eyes when she glances at the next painting, a landscape. ‘She doesn’t paint anymore. Not since- well, not since we went colour blind.’

Bellamy hadn’t realised they hadn’t always been this way, wonders what this house would look like in colour. What Raven would look like, what _Clarke_ would.

He looks at the landscape again, quick, over his shoulder, and he could swear that- for just a moment- cerulean blue bursts across its sky.


	3. all the secrets that we've got so far

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nerd bellamy gets very belle (you guys should definitely embrace disney references)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is quite a short one, because I wanted to get the chapter out, but i promise the next one is a fair bit longer!

After that, Bellamy eats with them every day- or sits and watches them eat anyway.

Clarke is conspicuously silent, but none of the others really react, bickering back and forth as if he’s always been there.

It reminds him of his sister and makes a tiny smile lilt the corners of his lips, until the day he sees Clarke’s lips do the same and tugs his own back down.

A few days in, listening to Monty and Jasper regale the table with tales of their experiments that day- something to do with _im_ plosions- Bellamy realises that everyone else _does stuff_ during the day. As opposed to what he does, which is basically just sit in his room writing down everything he can think of about the Underworld in the little leather-bound book he keeps in his pocket.

Sometimes he writes to Octavia, sometimes to Miller. Sometimes he writes to his mother but, more often than not, he rips those ones up.

Finally, he cracks, and just as Jasper holds up his goggles to demonstrate the crack bisecting one of the lenses, he announces- as obnoxiously as possible- his boredom.

Nobody but Clarke really responds beyond a nod, but at the end of the meal she leads him silently down a corridor he’s never noticed before.

To a library. A _library_. Crammed full of bookshelves all equally stuffed with cracked spines. It’s like his mouth _waters_.

‘Here,’ she says brusquely. ‘Entertain yourself.’

So he does.

It’s the only place he doesn’t notice that everything is black and white.

Some days he gets so absorbed that he doesn’t notice that Clarke- Wanheda Clarke- isn’t making him _do_ anything. If anything, he’s treated like a guest that they’ve all forgotten about, not some incorrectly gendered sacrifice.

He doesn’t see Lincoln, and he wonders if that’s why.

It’s been a long time since Bellamy’s had a break, and it’s almost peaceful. It _feels_ peaceful. He even half-resents that side of his brain that can’t forget why he’s here, can’t forget his sister and his friends and his duty, can’t forget that he’s tucked into a viper’s nest, doing nothing but _enjoying_ the calm before the storm.

The only thing that’s missing- the big thing that’s missing- are the flowers. He misses the sun something desperate, but he misses the green and the life and blossoming of spring _fiercely_ , draining him like an ache in every limb.

Clarke comes to the library, too, he discovers. He’s draped over a rich velvet chair reading- coincidentally- a book about various mythological representations of the afterlife when her shadow falls across him. He startles, his glasses sliding right off the peak of his nose.

‘Shit,’ he swears, and she smirks, bends to pick up the book he’s dropped. She reads the creased spine.

‘Reading up on us?’ she asks, cool but light.

He shrugs, determined to regain his nonchalance.

He waits for her to leave, or to snap a caustic comment at him. Instead, she nods, letting her hair swing forward into her face. In place of her usual braids, one single plait dangles behind each ear, the rest hanging free in loose waves. She looks softer, younger. Wanheda is nowhere in sight.

‘I haven’t even read all of these,’ she admits, gently nudging the pile at their feet.

‘No?’ he asks, not sure where he’s going. ‘Lacking in the research department, then.’

‘Something like that,’ Clarke says mildly, her expression inscrutable. Then she sighs. ‘I live it; why would I want to read about it?’

_Fair enough_ , Bellamy thinks, but refuses to let her see the concession.

‘Is this a prison inspection?’ he questions, leaking a note of taunt into his tone. She stares at him baldly, unwavering.

‘You can make me into any villain you like,’ she says, and Bellamy bristles at the haughty condescension in her voice. ‘Let me know if it actually helps.’

‘I don’t have to make you into _anything_ ,’ he snaps, ‘you’ve done all the work for me.’ When she remains stoically silent, he can’t help himself. ‘Did you expect people to _like_ you for this? To _praise_ you?’

Her blue eyes are unflinchingly raw, but disparaging when she turns her gaze on him.

‘Do you think I’m stupid? I got exactly what I expected and exactly what was deserved. Perhaps you should consider _that_ the next time your arrogance resurfaces. ‘Stone walls do not a prison make’, Bellamy, ‘nor iron bars a cage’,’ she quotes.

‘No,’ Bellamy agrees, and looks significantly around at the rugs adorning the stone floor, the black-veined marble pillars between the shelves. He knows she can’t help following his eyes, because the same is true in reverse. ‘But they don’t half contribute.’

Clarke studies him for a moment, calculating and intent- intelligent. He shifts onto the balls of his feet, hating the exposure her eyes strip him open to.

Eventually, she speaks.

‘I will not apologise for my actions,’ she states, and Bellamy snorts, ‘but I am truly sorry for the damage that has been done to you and to your family.’

He cocks his head, his stare hard. ‘Do you apologise to all of them, to all of _their_ families?’

The silence stretches irrevocably thin between them, taut and immutable.

‘What do you think, Bellamy Blake?’ she asks, ‘since you think you know so much. What else have you discovered in those books of mine?’

His lips part, but only air whispers out. Uncertainty churns his stomach, fists his windpipe. _It’s her eyes_ , his thoughts snarl, _beguiling, open, deceptive_.

Did _she apologise?_

_That doesn’t make it any better, make her any less awful_.

‘I think,’ he says, careful for the first time, ‘that I want to see a three-headed dog.’

Clarke’s eyebrows shoot upwards and the corners of her lips prick her cheeks infinitesimally. ‘Anything else?’

Bellamy leans in and yanks the book from her hands, just lightly enough to not be snatching. She lets him, as if she’s just as curious. ‘Do you have a scale to weigh the evil of human hearts? Are there mummies here?’

She laughs, short, and it’s a shock. Her gaze is appraising. ‘Aren’t you pretty important in your own right? Do none of the other immortals know this stuff?’

He considers. ‘Like I said, you’re not exactly a tourist destination.’

Her smile is a paradox, both wolfish and conceding.

She inclines her head towards the other side of the room and gestures at another row of shelves. ‘That section over there will tell you more about us, specifically. Otherwise, I’m sure Monty would be happy to talk to you.’

She turns to leave, her hair a whirl of platinum, her twin braids ribboned with gleaming gold.

‘Who are they?’ he shouts after her about Monty and the others, just as she touches the door handle. She pauses, but doesn’t look back at him.

‘People, Bellamy,’ her fingers clench, ‘they’re all just people.’

She leaves then, and he stands for a while before his chair, staring at the air she’d just occupied. _Clarke_ , not Wanheda. The woman who the girl he’d known might’ve become, if death hadn’t swirled poisonously in her veins.

The memory stirs something in him, and he recognises, with a shock like a physical shove back into the armchair, that her little plaits had flashed yellow. Quick, momentary, between the blink of his eyes- like a camera shuttering a moment. _A flash of sunlight, a flash of_ colour.

He doesn’t read more that day, but on the next, he ventures to the shelves Clarke had highlighted and, with a pang of dull surprise and grudging appreciation that he quickly dampens, he finds exactly what he’s been looking for. There’s nothing on weird marriages, though, nothing to explain what he’s _doing_ her or what, exactly, he should be afraid of.

He’s a little resentful, but mostly grateful. Mostly.


	4. the path to heaven runs through miles of clouded hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bellamy gets to see wanheda in action (and gets a bit of clarke time too)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (just a warning- there's mention of some pretty horrific crimes here and adult themes, including a brief allusion to rape. it's barely there but just in case)

It turns out the library is apparently the place to seek him out. Lincoln comes for him next, and though it’s just as unexpected, this time Bellamy schools his surprise better.

‘Come with me,’ Lincoln orders gruffly, before Bellamy’s even saved his place in his book. He doesn’t meet Bellamy’s eyes.

They walk in silence, Lincoln a step or two ahead the whole way. Fascinated, Bellamy watches the shadows across Lincoln’s shoulders shift and shape and distort. One moment he thinks he sees a stallion galloping up his spine, the next leaves dancing on a smoky wind, then a snake curling around a tree, then a girl, screaming and screaming…

‘It’s rude to stare,’ Lincoln remarks, casual but not for the shoulder tension his cape of shadows can’t disguise.

Words swirl in his head, questions and retorts and more questions. Coherency does not dominate.

Lincoln leads him away from the dining room and the living area of the house, back towards the throne room where he was brought upon his arrival. The paintings become fewer and farther between, and Bellamy can feel the tension ratcheting up his spine in response.

Lincoln stops beside a small, nondescript doorway tucked into an archway.

‘She doesn’t know,’ Lincoln warns, and Bellamy feels the tugs of both apprehension and excitement. He’s been not _happy_ but easily content on his path of least resistance, but if information- helpful information that _doesn’t_ jeopardise Octavia- is going to fall into his lap, he’s not going to kick it away. He’s not a saint and, well, satisfaction brought the cat back to life.

‘Try to stay inconspicuous,’ Lincoln growls, and his stoic expression relaxes into the hint of a smirk. ‘Stick to the shadows.’

He grasps Bellamy’s shoulder briefly- not roughly- and Bellamy watches, vaguely horrified, as shadows detach themselves from Lincoln and flow towards him, pooling around him like an inky cloak.

He’s through the doorway before he’s really thought about it, Lincoln striding ahead.

It’s the same throne room where Clarke received him before, and not.

Instead of the echoing stone chamber that gave him his first impressions of the Underworld, this room _pulses_ , more like a chamber of a dark heart than of a cave. Along the length of the room, Clarke’s icy fire provides flickering, bleaching illumination, but small, cage-like iron lanterns strung periodically above the tongues of flame belch the dense incense smoke that keep the room shrouded in heavy obscurity. Bellamy stifles the urge to sneeze.

Choruses of grey people stand sentry, their features indistinct and their shapes blurrily reminiscent of some concretely urban skyline. Curiosity tells Bellamy to peer closer but instinct reigns him in, cautious. At the end of the rectangular space atop the raised dais stands Clarke’s throne and, within it, sits Clarke. She’s resplendent in what Bellamy thinks of as her Wanheda attire, all black leather and lethal spikes, her hair tightly braided and the colour of her eyes all the more incandescent for being outlined in kohl. Atop her head balances that adamant crown, but her spine shows no sign of weakening under its weight, ramrod straight and every inch the queen.

Today- for all the azure of her eyes- her hair remains silver, white, metallic.

Monty and Jasper stand to one side of the throne, clothed entirely in solid black and faces unduly inexpressive. Jasper’s goggles are conspicuously absent. Lincoln strides down the central channel of the room like a boat cleaving a river in two, Bellamy in his wake, and the grey sentries of the audience whisper and shuffle like weeds in the wind. Instead of reacting, Lincoln calmly ascends the dais and takes what Bellamy instantly recognises as his spot at Clarke’s right shoulder. Raven shifts slightly further along to cede it to him, nodding a solemn greeting.

It’s all very ostentatiously _intense_ , and Bellamy worries suddenly what he’s wandered into, whether it’s a trap. He presses into the shadows to the left of the dais, the fist around his windpipe easing slightly when Raven’s hawk-like gaze slides over him as if he’s as insubstantial as smoke. Relief floods him.  

‘Lincoln,’ greets Clarke, her voice chilly and her expression Wanheda. ‘You’re late.’

Lincoln inclines his head in a bow, the picture of respectability. ‘My apologies, Wanheda.’

Clarke’s eyes linger on his momentarily, questioningly, but Lincoln inclines his head to the waiting room significantly and Clarke turns her brisk gaze back to face her audience. It’s an exchange Bellamy is fairly sure most in the room missed entirely. He wonders if Clarke’s eyes are as piercing and as easy to follow in hues of grey as they are in striking, burning blue.

‘Bring them in,’ Wanheda commands, and from the depths of the chamber, two enormous double doors grind open. A trio of men march forward, heavily armed but postures obviously deferential.

Just as the group reach the crest of the dais, Clarke waves her hand with the airiness of total power, and a glistening set of pewter scales, larger than the average kitchen set and, Bellamy recognises, much more significant, appear at her feet.

Clarke inclines her head, a predator scenting her prey. ‘A little something I stole from a few stories I’ve been told,’ she announces lazily, ‘courtesy of my advisors.’ She nods at Raven, who returns the gesture with a formality unfamiliar to Bellamy.

She leans forward, and Bellamy can feel the tension- the silence- of everyone hanging on her every syllable, like fish swinging from hooks in a smoking room. ‘Who are you,’ she asks, heavy with the weight of tradition, ‘and what have you done?’

The first of the three men bows low and lays his weapon- a gun- on the ground with a soft clatter of uselessness. Clarke looks at it impassively, and Bellamy can _hear_ the man swallow. Someone in the crowd titters, so he can’t be the only one.  

‘My queen,’ he says, reverent. ‘My name is Joe Macallan and I am a lowly shop owner, begging for your mercy.’

His friends introduce themselves in kind, and Clarke’s expression remains still and unmoved.

‘You introduce yourself as shop owners,’ she drawls, ‘as if the weight of your crimes doesn’t drag your soul and everything else about you through the mud.’ She flicks a speck of imaginary dust from the arm of her chair, impudence and arrogance saturating her every movement. ‘I don’t like mess.’

Raven laughs a cruel cadence that sends shivers up his spine. ‘I beg to differ, my queen. Everyone knows you _love_ the messy ones.’

Clarke smirks, her eyes alight with a punishing spark. Joe rocks towards her, as if she exerts a gravitational pull of her own.

‘True,’ she purrs, the predator at ease, and her gaze drifts lazily over the men. ‘Unfortunately, my advisor speaks the truth.’  

Joe’s face blanches even whiter. ‘Unfortunately, my queen?’

She cocks her head, circling in for the kill, and chills skitter over Bellamy’s skin, cold as ice. _This_ is the monster.

‘Do you have anything you would like to admit before we weigh your souls in the balance?’ She narrows her eyes gleefully, ‘and presumably find them wanting.’

Two of the men stay silent, their eyes downcast. The third steps forward and falls to his knees with a crack that echoes through the room.

‘I’m- sorry,’ he moans, one hand tearing through his hair and the other stretched towards Clarke in supplication. ‘I didn’t mean to!’

Lazily, effortlessly, Clarke lifts one booted foot and kicks the man’s arm away. There’s a horrific splintering of bone, and the man screams.

Vomit rises in Bellamy’s throat, and his hands itch to help, to knit new life. But he knits flower, not bone, and if there ever was a city of bones, this is it.

‘Perhaps you should have stayed quiet,’ Clarke muses, ‘for now both your dignity and your morality have been invariably lost. And’ she continues thoughtfully, ‘your eternal peace.’

Curled around his broken hand, the man only groans.

Clarke slams her foot back onto the floor and it reverberates through the room, through Bellamy. ‘Shall I tell them, then? Shall I tell them of the thieving, of the fraud, of the money laundering?’ Her voice becomes a snarl, death promised in its every equivocation. ‘Shall I tell them of the girls that screamed for mercy from those hands while, together, you held them done and laughed at their panic? You should lose much more than your hand, and at _my_ hand, you will.’

The man who first introduced himself as Joe makes a choking sound.

Wanheda’s cool gaze finds him, and he begins to shake. ‘Did you think I wouldn’t know? Did you think that I, in all my _power_ , would soak up your lies like everyone else?’

She laughs and twirls her hand again, a conductor of her orchestra of death.

With a shattering clang, one side of the pewter scales crashes into the floor.

‘Hear that?’ Clarke sing-songs, cupping her hand to her ear mockingly. ‘Eternity’s calling, boys, and she’s a much crueller mistress than me.’ She leans in confidingly. ‘I wouldn’t be late.’

‘Please.’

The sound of the plea is broken, juddering, and Bellamy watches tears track down Joe’s face, drip onto the stone floor at his feet.

Clarke’s face is as merciless, as unyielding, as any rock.

‘Take them away,’ she commands, and as guards slink forward and drag the men away- one crying, one kicking, and one stoically silent- Bellamy hears the disgust that he feels in his chest mirrored in her tone.

_A monster for the monsters_.

The screams rebound from the walls, like bouncing daggers burrowing under Bellamy’s skin and carving horror into his bones.

‘Good riddance,’ Raven murders, and Clarke just nods grimly, the sadistic glee wiped from her face by grim resignation.

The next few are all very much variations on the same theme, Clarke’s face twisting into the monstrous predator of Wanheda to distribute eternal punishment onto the souls of criminals and the evil of Bellamy’s- now of _her_ \- world.

Bile has burned Bellamy’s throat, repulsion at Clarke’s ministrations and, more, at the horrors she has to punish. By the fifth, his ears are ringing with the screams and he’s trying to figure out how to leave the room as inconspicuously as possible.

He might not be able to justify her actions, but he understands how this, day in and day out for the endless stretch of eternity, would make someone into a monster. Would drive someone to give up on humanity and morality and _life_.

He _longs_ for his fields, for coiling greenery and dirt that yields life instead of crime, for blue that is not limited to sharp eyes but unfurls boundlessly across the summer sky. He misses life, can feel it draining out of him, like a petal crushed between thumb and forefinger.

Then the girl walks in, and Clarke straightens from her indolent sprawl. Bellamy’s jaw grinds and his fists curl.

A world ago, the girl edging forward could be Octavia.

Her dark plaits are lank and unruly, the soft skin of her face smudged with either dirt or bruises; without the telling purple hue, Bellamy can’t tell.

Beneath her breastbone, the sticky black wetness of blood stains her t-shirt.

But for that, she’d look perfectly ordinary, if only Bellamy couldn’t see the tight clenching of her fists, the chipped polish of her fingernails drawing his eyes to where they dig crescent moons into her palms.

In an instant, Clarke’s entire demeanour changes. At her side, Monty smiles gently.

‘Hello,’ she says softly, and mirrors Monty. It gives Bellamy a jolt, and clearly surprises the girl, trying desperately to project strength and fearlessness over her terror.

The girl looks around slowly, her eyes missing nothing. ‘Hello. Who are you?’

‘That’s my line,’ Clarke says, and this time the tilt of her head is friendly rather than mocking.

The girl lifts her chin. ‘My name is Lucy Elizabeth Hawkins, and I’m six years and eleven months old.’ She looks at Clarke expectantly.

‘I’m Clarke; I’m the queen here.’ She gestures around, not unkindly. ‘Do you know where you are? Do you know what happened?’

As the girl takes in the chamber around her, quick as lightening, Clarke turns to Lincoln, murmurs something. The scales disappear silently, and Lincoln slinks away.

‘I’m not sure,’ the girl says slowly, and then raises her eyes to Clarke again, appraising and undaunted. ‘Am I dead?’

Clarke sighs, and it breathes something genuine into Bellamy’s ear. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Why are you apologising?’ Lucy asks openly, no accusation in her voice. ‘It’s not your fault.’ She pauses thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think so, anyway.’

‘No,’ Clarke agrees, ‘it’s not. But I’m sorry all the same. Six years and eleven months is not a very long time.’

‘It is to me,’ the girl replies, with the air of someone who’s lived much longer. ‘Don’t I get time here?’

Clarke’s answering smile is soft, apologetic. There’s a crack splintering the blue of her eyes that looks a lot like heartbreak. ‘All the time in the world.’

The girl sighs. ‘I can handle that, then.’ She considers. ‘Was the- was the driver okay?’

Bellamy thinks of the man who’d stumbled in a few arrivals back, the stench of whiskey blackening his scent just like his alcoholism had blackened his soul. Clarke had sentenced him for killing someone, had mentioned something about driving. He can see the truth reflected in her eyes and knows she made the connection long before he did. He wonders if, like him, the girl’s wide eyes and ageless understanding makes her wish she’d been harsher.

_How long is long enough for six years and eleven months?_

He wonders if this makes him a monster, too.

He thinks that there are worse monsters in the world.

‘He didn’t suffer before he died,’ Clarke says carefully, and Bellamy doesn’t miss the hint of threat in her phrasing.

Lincoln slips back to his place at Clarke’s side, signals subtly.

There’s a bark that brings Bellamy’s faltering senses to life, because it shouts of life and joy and growth. From some hidden entryway behind the dais, a black and white sheepdog leaps forward- no less lively for being colourless. She strains towards the girl.

‘Jessie!’ she cries, and falls to her knees to wrap her skinny arms around the dog. The image is so jarringly different from the crude begging from earlier that Bellamy nearly winces with it, but- oddly- smiles instead. Clarke echoes him.

When the girl shifts to look at Clarke again, the bloodstain has vanished from her clothes, and she’s smiling, hopeful rather than stoic.

‘Your family are waiting for you just through that door,’ Clarke urges gently, and gestures to an archway Bellamy can only vaguely make out. She smiles encouragingly. ‘Your mother will be very glad to see you again.’

‘Mama!’ the girl cries, and half runs to the archway, the dog so close to her heels that his wagging tail brushes her legs.

Bellamy inhales, and the dog’s lolloping head swings round, spots him where no one else has. For a moment, they jerk towards each other- nature _pulls_ \- but then Bellamy shakes himself free from her grip. Though the dog pants, Bellamy knows life does not pump through his veins.

He closes his eyes, pictures a sunflower, twisting and curling towards the sun, bright and bold and unapologetic. It helps, just.

The girl pauses just before the archway, her dog recovering and bounding ahead. She turns back to Clarke, glancing over her shoulder.

‘Thank you,’ she says, her voice chiming with clarity. Clarke simply nods, and the girl disappears under the arch.

‘Enough,’ Clarke announces, the command of Wanheda back in her voice the moment the girl has gone. As she stands to stride out, the room erupts into fidgeting whispers.

Bellamy clenches his jaw, a confusion of impressions.

_Who is the real person? Wanheda, the cruel and monstrous leader of the Underworld, or Clarke, the girl who brings dogs back to comfort little girls and paints everything and has the sky in her eyes?_

It’s been a day full of contradictions, but that question- and its absence of an answer- rattles beneath Bellamy’ breastbone like nothing else.

 

* * *

 

 

At dinner that evening, Clarke and Bellamy are as quiet as each other. As if to make up for it, there’s an almost forced boisterousness from the others.

Bellamy stares at the food and thinks about eating, about giving in. He’s still not entirely sure if it’s a myth that eating their food will trap him here, but he’s not ready to risk it.

However much Raven and Monty and Jasper and Murphy act like an- albeit dysfunctional- family, he’s not part of it.

He has his own.

He stays in his seat long after the food’s gone, staring at the table’s surface like it’ll whisper all of the Underworld’s secrets if he looks long enough. He’s deep enough in his thoughts that he barely notices Raven and the others peel off, muttering.

Clarke’s voice shatters his concentration.

‘You were there,’ she states, no question or condemnation in her voice. He lets his eyes meet hers, bright and unusually open. ‘Today, you were there.’

He nods. ‘Lincoln, uh, disguised me?’

Clarke seems to absorb this information as if it’s expected, closing her eyes once to hide any further reaction.

‘How do you do it?’ he asks, eventually, and she looks startled, confusion winning out over blankness. ‘How are you two people at once?’

The look she gives him is weary. ‘I’m a queen, Bellamy. I do what I have to.’ She sighs. ‘It might not always seem like it, but there are good people here and it is my duty to protect them.’ Her eyes blaze, like her fire burns behind them. ‘I will not let them down for my own selfish reasons.’

‘Selfish reasons?’ he repeats, but she turns her face away.

‘You know,’ he starts conversationally. ‘You’re really good at that. Explaining stuff in a way that doesn’t actually tell me _anything_.’

She smiles, just as casual. ‘Who I am and who I need to be are two different things.’

‘Okay,’ Bellamy grunts. ‘I mean, that sounds like bullshit, but okay.’

Clarke’s laughing eyes dance over him, and he feels small with all that he doesn’t know and understand, like _he’s_ the one letting _her_ down. He is not a fan of the feeling.

‘Why don’t you eat?’ she asks instead, and he can almost hear concern in her voice. Again, something else he’s not sure he’s a fan of. ‘Not to be a dick or anything-‘

‘We both know you’re going to be a dick, Clarke,’ he interrupts mildly.

She smirks. ‘You look like shit.’

‘What?’ he says, ‘you’re worried what people will think about your hosting skills? Because I’ve got some bad news about that.’

‘Yeah, you’re right.’ Her eyes spark with something like teasing. ‘Must be your sense of humour I’m bothered about losing.’

He considers, thinks of a rose from a long time ago. ‘There’re no flowers,’ he admits, ‘no plants. It, uh, doesn’t mix well with my system, you know?’

She absorbs the information, and he wonders what else he could’ve said that she’d just take in her stride.

‘I don’t know if there’s anything I can do about that,’ she says eventually.

‘Well,’ he says, only half-joking, ‘you could let me go.’

She hums, raises her eyebrows.

‘Yeah,’ he mutters, ‘I thought not.’

He’s about to stand when her voice stops him. ‘I remember you, from when we were children?’

Barely, he nods.

‘You gave me some good memories for when I came to this place,’ she says, and he swallows. ‘I’m sorry to repay you like this.’

He can’t help himself; it bursts out of him like a sprouting root. ‘What _happened_ to you?’

The air between them splinters and cracks, and he can feel the years between them, the loss he felt when she left and then when he found out, decades later, what she’d become.

‘What was always going to happen, Bellamy,’ she whispers. ‘I _am_ death.’

‘You were a _child_ ,’ he spits fiercely, and surprise paints itself across her features like a blush he’d never be able to see.

‘That was a long time ago.’ Her voice is soft, her smile softer. ‘We aren’t innocent kids anymore.’

‘No,’ he agrees, stony at _something_. ‘We’re not.’

She gets to her feet, turns to leave. Why she’s always the first to walk away, he doesn’t know, but even though he’s not even sure if he likes her or hates her, it curdles in his stomach.

‘I’m sorry about the flowers,’ she calls over her shoulder. ‘But you should still eat.’

He snorts.


	5. every rose has its thorn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a little bit of (very conflicted) clarke pov (wahoo)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i've actually got an exam tomorrow (last one ever yayay) so just in case there's a bit of delay... here's another chapter. xo

It’s the first time she’s come to his room since he’s been there.

She stares at the closed door for longer than she should, far longer than any _queen_ should.

_Get it together, Clarke_.

Without thinking she clenches her hand tighter around the object she’s holding- _it’s not a peace offering, Raven_ \- and winces as blood trickles over her fingers.

With her other fist, she reaches out and knocks.

He opens the door almost instantly, wrapped in casual clothes and those precarious thick-framed glasses balanced lopsidedly on his nose. She swallows. _Who’d have thought brown would ever be her favourite colour_?

Even if it’s pretty much the _only_ colour.

She supposes that she should be offended- for regal reasons only, of course- that his sharp gaze slides right over her before shifting to her bleeding hand, hooked by some kind of magnetism with which even the Queen of the Underworld can’t compete.

His pupils dilate and, in parallel, the petals of the rose curl shut and then re-blossom. Time lapse photography, right in front of her.

Bellamy looks like an addict staring at his next fix, his Adam’s apple bouncing with the strain he visually exerts in not snatching the flower from her. Still, he sways towards her- towards _it_.

‘Here,’ she says brusquely, shoving it at him.

He takes it from her almost reverently, and the opening and closing of the petals speeds up. His hair curls in the non-existent breeze, twisting with a life that she’ll never feel again.

Jealousy, bitter on her tongue, flares. She swallows it back down. She remembers what it was like to have to hide that huge part of her, to not let the death in her veins drown out the life in everyone around her, how it felt like _she_ was dying. How choking and suffocating it was to deny that most innate side of herself.

She watches Bellamy cradle the single rose, and she remembers. She remembers, and familiar guilt washes over her. She knows exactly how he’s suffering- that core part of him repressed and shoved away- beyond the reach of even the meagre family she’d had back then, and she’s the one making it worse.

Considering he was one of the ones who’d lessened the pain for her, what she’s doing to him in return- it’s unforgivable.

‘Where did you get this?’ Bellamy asks eventually, dragging his eyes up to hers. She can hear the unspoken question behind the vocalised one: _How did you not kill it instantly_?

She shrugs. ‘Not everything about death is destructive.’

‘Sure,’ Bellamy allows, and then narrows his eyes behind the lenses of his glasses. Candlelight halos his curls and she nearly squints; it’s like coming out of a dark room and staring at the sun, like the glare of pure light from a shuttering camera. He shakes his head, scattering fragments of light. She blinks. ‘Yeah, no, you’ll have to tell me.’

She recovers, smirks. ‘So now you’re interested in what I’ve got to say.’

He grins, bright and toothy, like a child who’s woken up to find he’s forgotten it was really Christmas Day. ‘I’m a sucker for bribery.’

She knows he’s teasing, knows he has every right to hate her. So why does it unsettle her so much that she has to be- at least in part- the villain of his story? Why is it jarring to realise that he’s right, yes, what she’s doing here is _definitely_ bribery?

‘Good,’ she says over her swirling thoughts. ‘Then I’ve got something to show you.’

Bellamy pauses, his expression flickering. He doesn’t trust her. _Good_. _He shouldn’t_.

‘Really,’ he says drily, but she can hear the undercurrent under the voice he’s keeping level. ‘Because the last time one of you lot took me from my ivory tower it was pretty intense, and I’m not sure I got enough beauty sleep for more of that.’

She snorts, and when she starts walking he falls into step beside her. ‘We’re not going to court,’ she explains. ‘And since when are you the fairy-tale princess?’

Bellamy points to the lamps fixed periodically along the walls, dancing with her white fire. ‘Since this dragon stole me away.’

In retaliation, she twists her fingers. A tongue of flame bursts free from the next lamp, rears onto the hind legs of a horse, and gallops around Bellamy in a trail of smoke. He laughs, low and almost impressed.

‘Threatening,’ he pronounces, and she snaps her fingers, making fiery birds fly above their heads, light the corridors ahead.

‘Besides,’ he continues conversationally, ‘I always thought it was kind of unfair that only the damsels ever got to be in distress.’

She grunts. ‘You and me both.’

He raises his eyebrows, incredulous. ‘Oh, come on, Clarke. Like you’ve ever been the damsel.’

To hide the jolt that runs through her when he says her name, her _true_ name, she makes the birds dance over burning waves, flying fish leaping free as if to meet her birds in the middle.

‘You’re right,’ she acquiesces, and watches as one of the birds plunges suddenly down and snatches a fish in its flaming beak. ‘I’m much too badass for that.’

Bellamy makes a strange, choking noise, and she looks at him sideways. He’s looking at the fiery scene before them, not at her.

His tone is exasperated. ‘But _why_ would you do that?’

‘What?’ she asks, falsely innocent. ‘The birds?’ He growls.

She shrugs. ‘Circle of life and death, Bellamy. That’s something we _both_ know about. Besides, I can’t control everything. It’s in the nature of birds to hunt for fish, in the nature of fish to hunt for _their_ food. You can’t begrudge them for that.’ She glances at him. ‘You can’t expect anyone to change their nature.’

He grunts. ‘You can say that again.’

He pauses. ‘I take it I’m the fish?’

She laughs delightedly. ‘Shit, no. The fish are the fish. You, Bellamy Blake, are as immortal as I am.’

‘Yeah, okay,’ his smirk is amused. ‘We’re not in the cycle; we _are_ the cycle.’

She raises one eyebrow at him, and his gaze flickers to her eyes and stays there, intense. ‘That’s a little arrogant, don’t you think?’

He shoots her an incredulous look, the moment lost in a blink. ‘Coming from you?’ He puts on a high, fake falsetto. ‘Hi, Pot. Yeah, it’s me, Kettle. You’re fucking _black_.’

She tries to disguise her laughter as a scoff and is aware of how badly she fails. ‘I’m glad to see sarcasm hasn’t developed any more since I left the surface.’

He looks affronted. ‘Excuse you, I have been honing my skills for a _really_ long time.’

‘Sure you have, buddy,’ she says, and pats him on the arm, casually, lightly, without thinking.

They both pause. She doesn’t think they’ve ever touched before, even through layers of clothes. Discomfit shifts behind his opaque eyes.

She yanks her arm back, as quickly as if she’s been burnt by her own fire. ‘Sorry,’ she mutters, awkward. She’s got to stop _forgetting_.

Lincoln is just going to _love_ this.

‘You’re bleeding,’ he says suddenly, breaking the thick silence. She looks down at her left hand. The trickle of blood’s mostly dried and cracked, painting the white tips at the crest of each fingernail a gruesome crimson. _Lovely_.

Serves her right for clenching her fists, she supposes.

‘Oh,’ she says airily, shifting her palm from his hawk-like eyesight. It’s unnerving and she suddenly sympathises with the rose, shifting in and out of agitated blossoming, basking under his bright, burning attention. ‘It’s nothing. Every rose has its thorn, and all that.’

One corner of his mouth lifts up, a half-smile. ‘You could just as easily say that every thorn has its rose.’

This time she does squint at him. ‘Could you, though?’

He shifts, shoves the hand that’s not holding the rose into his pocket. His cheek swells where he’s pushing his tongue into it, trying not to smile.

‘Who’s the flower expert here, Clarke?’ He waves his hand around. ‘I’ll take your point on the fishy deaths, but you’re going to have to take my word on this one.’

She wrinkles her nose. ‘Are you always this glass-half-full?’

He inhales something like a snort. ‘Like, never. My sister would probably pass out if she could hear me right now.’

He stills as he says it, like he can’t believe he let it slip out.

‘What’s her name?’ she asks carefully, aware of how she’s pressing him. ‘I don’t remember you having a sister.’

His darks eyes scan her face, assessing. She must pass some kind of test at least, because he replies.

‘Octavia.’ There’s a small pause. ‘She wasn’t born until a couple of centuries after you left.’

‘Oh,’ Clarke says quietly, prodding that statement with her finger and deciding she doesn’t want to go there. ‘You must really care about her.’

Bellamy looks at her like she’s mildly stupid. ‘What kind of a question is that?’

She laughs helplessly. ‘Sorry, I, uh- sorry. I guess you’ve always been protective.’

Another rose hangs in the air between them, phantom but heavy with meaning and memory.

‘Besides,’ Clarke barrels on, desperately lifting her tone. ‘You don’t always get _loads_ of familial love down here.’

‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Bellamy’s voice is soft. ‘That little girl, Lucy, with her mother and her dog. Plus,’ he glances at her askance. ‘Raven, Monty, the others. You guys sure _feel_ a lot like a family.’

Something pricks, sharp, in her chest. Lincoln’s face swims behind her eyelids, warm, earnest, and begging against the backdrop of a familiar scene, bright in a bubble of technicolour.

_Please, Clarke_.

_Save them, Clarke_.

She is _very_ glad that they reach the doorway then, and Bellamy looks up at the thick, oak doors, surprised.

There’s no handle, so she lifts her arm and rests her palm firmly on the wood. Lets it read her.

With a groan, the doors swing away from them.

Time pauses. Bellamy inhales.

The garden stretches before them, boundless.


	6. you and me (we just lay down in the garden)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes i am really into disney sue me

Shrouded in twilight and shaded in black and white, even Clarke has to admit that the garden is beautiful.

At her side, Bellamy’s breathing is harsh, as if she can hear his heart thundering.

Curling vines brush the horizon, flowers and trees and bushes saturating her sight for as far as she can see. Petals glint in the silvery light, delicately veined with moonlight and twitching gently as if sensing Bellamy at her side, as if calling him to _their_ side. Branches groan under the pregnant weight of fruit, and Clarke smiles faintly, remembering Monty and Raven’s attempt to sustain a vineyard here, desperate to recreate the wine they barely ever got to taste.

She knows the garden reasonably well- it’s been growing bigger and bigger for as long as she’s been in the Underworld- but even she can’t follow the winding pathways fully. The garden’s a maze of uncultivated tangles, built mostly on flowers and plants that Bellamy won’t have seen in decades, in centuries- might _never_ have seen.

They’re the flowers that don’t live anymore and, here, they flourish.

Bellamy makes a sound next to her, part growl, part moan, and part _cracking_.

‘Go,’ she says softly, and when she turns to face him, his pupils have blown wide, his hair twisting madly, and his expression tinged with desperation.

‘Clarke,’ he manages, and then his voice fails. He can’t seem to tear his eyes away, and it makes a little part of her ache beneath her breastbone.

She laughs, almost forcefully casual. ‘Bellamy, it’s okay. _Go_.’

She doesn’t have to repeat herself a third time; there’s a sound like the garden itself is sighing, and Bellamy’s gone, enveloped in the welcoming undergrowth.

She’s not sure how long she stays there, just watching her garden become someone else’s, have _life_ breathed back into it. After a while, she realises that dew has soaked through the seat of her jeans- that she must have sat at some point- and she stands again, wiping her palms on her thighs.

She hasn’t seen Bellamy since he disappeared, but she can tell exactly where he is. Like a rippling ocean, the leaves around his locus undulate and pulse. He’s the heart, and he’s making them _dance_.

If nothing else, it’s one of the most beautiful things she’s ever seen.

It’s peaceful.

The shifting waves make it easy for her to find him; there’s a hum in the air and she just follows that. Besides, even without colour, she can see the difference his presence has made. Where he’s stood, footprint-shaped shoots have sprouted. Where his arms have brushed, fruit bulges with ripeness, petals gleam with a new lease of life.

It’s like the difference between a silent corpse and a peaceful sleeper. Between emptiness and tranquillity. It’s not quite _life_ , but it’s something much more than death.

She finds him balanced him halfway up a tree, back propped against the trunk and his long limbs cradled by the branches. It’s not a position that she can really imagine being particularly comfortable but he looks- perhaps unsurprisingly, when she thinks about it- more relaxed than she’s ever seen him. The branches above his head arch over him like bowing supplicants, leaves dangling to caress his hair, to whisper secrets.

He tosses something- an apple, she thinks- in the air and catches it.

‘Hi,’ he says softly, like he doesn’t want to disturb the moment.

‘I, uh,’ she coughs, clears her throat, tries again. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t brought you here before.’

His eyes are steady, unreadable. There’s a sheen of health to his cheeks that he’s been missing, a _presence_ about him that suggests this has nourished him more than anything else could.

It makes her wonder if her not showing him the garden sooner wasn’t just an oversight but was _starving_ him.

‘I understand,’ he says instead, calm and collected.

‘You look half-wild up there,’ she comments lightly, brushing past a bough to shift closer. His eyes track her every movement, so she focuses on him rather than the foliage. ‘Very Tarzan.’

He smirks. ‘If you wanted to play Jane, you only had to say.’ The trees shiver, laughing for him.

She tries to scowl, finds she can’t. ‘We’ve been over this.’ She sticks a finger into her own chest. ‘ _Not_ the damsel in distress.’

He shrugs. ‘Jane could handle herself alright.’

‘I can do better than _alright_.’

‘Suuure, Princess,’ he drawls, and the nickname slips from between his lips, slides between her ribcage, and cleaves her chest in two. His face doesn’t change- his body displays no reaction- and yet all of a sudden all she can hear is his voice, light with childhood and innocent teasing, saying _Princess, Princess, Princess_ , over and over and over again.

He looks away, unaware, and touches a leaf with his finger. It gleams, like he’s smudged silvery dust on the surface. ‘You sure know your pop culture. You know, for someone who hasn’t left the Underworld for hundreds of years.’

She doubts he’d be that interested in the movie nights Jasper insists they have, curled up on the sofa to find some kind of warmth, her fire crackling behind a grate. She always- invariably- finds popcorn in her hair after that, thinks Raven weaves it into her hair when she gets sleepy to make her smile in the morning when she’s braiding it.

For Bellamy, she lets smugness fill her face. ‘We still get Netflix, you know. We aren’t _heathens_.’

Clarke’s fairly sure that if the flowers around him weren’t keeping him mellow, Bellamy would’ve taken that statement for the open goal it could be, and called them much worse. As it is, he lets it slide.

‘Maybe you can hook me up,’ he says instead, offhand. ‘Even sacrifices gotta keep busy.’

She stiffens. She shuffles back a step, winces at the tell-tale crackle of dead leaves under her boots. ‘I’ll get Raven on it.’

‘I’m good with an estimate,’ Bellamy says suddenly, cocking his head to one side so that his hair snags in the tree bark. ‘But when are you thinking about explaining all of this to me?’

She looks around reflexively, but there’s no one to eavesdrop, no one to help her, no one to distract them. She sighs. ‘It’s complicated.’

Bellamy nods slowly. ‘Oddly, I _had_ gathered that much.’

She lowers herself carefully into the undergrowth, sifts soil through her fingers. ‘I- soon.’ She pauses, smears a granule of soil into her palm like a bruise. ‘It’s not just my story to tell.’

His lips purse and his eyes flicker. _Exactly the shade the dirt in her palm would be_.

To distract him, and to assuage her aching curiosity, she dips her chin so her hair falls forward on either side of her face.

‘Tell me what it’s like,’ she asks softly, gently, half-expecting him to laugh in her face. Heaven knows she deserves it. ‘Up there. Tell me what it’d feel like, what it’d look like, if I could walk out there right now.’

Bellamy watches her steadily, tosses the apple in the air again.

‘Is this the proverbial olive branch?’ He smirks, runs his fingers along a branch beside him. ‘Or literal, I guess.’

She makes a face. ‘You were starting to look emaciated. It was annoying.’

He considers, lips pressed together.

‘Catch,’ he says suddenly, and tosses the fruit into her muddy palms. It’s a little bigger than she thought, more swollen around the middle, its skin bursting out in the centre in the shape of a star. It’s not an apple.

‘That’s a pomegranate,’ Bellamy supplies, and it’s only a little bit condescending. The edge relaxes from his tone.

‘Under the sun,’ he clears his throat loudly and the leaves framing him shiver. ‘In, uh, colour, it’d be waxy red.’ He hums, as if deep in thought. There’s something endearing about it, that he’s actually willing to talk to her seriously. ‘Not crimson, but blushed with pinky-orange, like-‘ he casts about- ‘coral. They’re pretty resilient- the trees, I mean- but generally they like it where its hot and dry.’

He sighs, wistful. ‘It’d be warm, because of the sun. So bright you can’t look at it- almost like an absence of colour- but in the best way, making everything golden and crisp. Colours everywhere- fresh colours, like the carpets of bright green and the waxy moss covering the trees, smelling grassy sweet everywhere. It wouldn’t be quiet; the breeze would whisper and the insects buzz in the undergrowth, too busy to be peaceful, exactly. Shoots of flowers sprouting up everywhere, dandelions and daisies and yellow buttercups sprinkled like flicks from a paintbrush and the _sky_ ,’ he pauses and his eyes, almost as if he can’t help it, drift to hers. Her stomach twists. ‘Sheets and sheets of azure blue filling your vision, wisps of cottoned clouds strewn across the expanse, shaping in their own slow-motion dances, barely a remembrance of rain in the air.’

She’s quiet, murmuring, so as not to break the spell. ‘Petrichor.’

He inclines his head, and his voice slows even more, almost deadly but for nostalgia. It’s like he’s passing that olive branch back to her when he says, ‘Yeah, I miss the rain too.’

His half-smile is wistful. ‘When Octavia was a kid, she loved thunderstorms. Used to curl up at the window and beg to be let out, shouting with the thunder.’ He shrugs and smiles fondly, his eyes distant. ‘In the end, I just used to let her. She’d dance and dance and dance like she could never slip and fall, like she was doing some kind of _ritual_ , for God’s sake, raindrops bouncing off her face and soaking her hair and her clothes and our _house_ whenever she’d finally drag herself back in.’

He casts her a look, calculating. ‘I heard her once, when I went to call her. Screaming and screaming into the storm like something wild.’

‘I know the feeling,’ Clarke mutters.

‘She had a rough childhood,’ Bellamy explains, reflexive in his defence. ‘Before I was old enough to actually help, she was, uh, locked up a lot. She’s not big on enclosed spaces, hates being trapped.’

Something clicks, falls into place. ‘And that’s why you’re here.’ Bellamy looks up, startled, and the foliage around him rustles in agitation. ‘So she doesn’t ever have to be trapped again.’

He gives her a long, dark look. ‘I already hate myself for saying this, but I actually think she would really like you.’ He seesaws his palms in the air, imitating the scales she’d tried when he’d slipped into her court. ‘Clarke, anyway. Wanheda, less so.’

‘Yeah,’ Clarke concedes drily. ‘She’s not the most popular.’

Bellamy quirks his eyebrow, but his voice is intense. ‘Why _be_ like her, then, if you dislike her so much?’

‘I don’t _dislike_ her, exactly,’ Clarke hedges, chewing her lip. Bellamy’s eyes flash between the spot she’s nervously worrying and her eyes- wide as a trapped rabbit’s, she’s sure. ‘She’s just a part of me I wish didn’t exist, and didn’t have to. But she is what I need, does what _I_ need to be able to do.’ She shrugs. ‘I’m a queen. Tale as old as time.’

‘Beauty and the Beast,’ Bellamy says immediately, automatic.

‘Ha!’ Clarke crows, triumphant. ‘I knew you were a Disney Princess kinda guy.’

‘I have a sister!’

Clarke gives him a sceptical look. ‘She definitely grew up way before those movies came out.’

Bellamy grunts, and a shower of leaves falls down to shield his face. ‘I admit nothing.’

‘Too late,’ Clarke singsongs smugly.

‘You’re the most obnoxious Queen of the Underworld I’ve ever met,’ Bellamy declares.

Clarke cocks her head. ‘Aren’t I the only one? Doesn’t that also make me the least obnoxious?’

‘No,’ Bellamy pouts, grumpy. ‘Still the most.’

She chucks the pomegranate at him, and he snatches it out of the air with one palm, grinning.

He brushes his thumb across the surface absent-mindedly and she gasps. Like a paintbrush, like the wing of a fairy, his thumb traces a blush of pinky-orange red- _coral_ , she thinks- across the shiny surface.

‘Bellam _y_ ,’ she whispers, reverent, and before she’s even _thought_ she’s back on her feet and meeting him as he swings down from the tree to meet her, confused.

He lands like a cat- nine lives and all- lightly on his feet before her, closer than they’ve ever been. For only the length of one sharp breath, she lets herself follow the arch of his cheekbones under those walnut eyes. Freckles dust his face like stardust, like his inky hair has dripped onto his cheeks. Like she’s been painting and flicked him with her brush.

 _Brown_ paint.

‘ _Bellamy_ ,’ she groans again, and if she had the capacity to feel it right then, she’d be embarrassed. As it is, long forgotten warmth floods her cheeks. Bellamy inhales sharply, his eyes ricocheting around her face, and that’s what she knows- completely, entirely, one hundred percent for certain- that he’s seeing it too.

He holds up the fruit still in his palm, angling it next to her cheek. She can almost smell its tangy sweetness.

‘Pomegranate blush,’ he whispers, and she can’t stop her hand from reaching for her own cheek, desperately seeking the warmth she feels there.

‘Your freckles are brown,’ she says, because she can’t think of anything else, and his gaze jumps back to hers. ‘Bellamy, _brown_. And the pomegranate, I can _see_ the colour.’

He considers something heavily, and then: ‘The other day, I saw a streak of yellow in your hair.’

She stares at him, dumbfounded.

‘This is crazy,’ her voice is faint. ‘I don’t _understand_. How is this happening?’

The pomegranate falls forgotten to the undergrowth and Bellamy’s warm palm wraps around her wrist, solid and grounding. His thumb feathers across her roaring pulse and she feels it- the life in him- throbbing and hot and undeniable. It’s _intoxicating_.

‘Clarke,’ he says, and it’s like she hears his voice from far away. ‘Clarke, it’s okay.’

‘I don’t understand,’ she moans again, anguished.

His expression crinkles, crumples with confusion, hardens with suspicion. ‘Why are you upset? Why are you acting like this is a bad thing?’

‘Because I don’t know that it’s not,’ Clarke murmurs.

She steels herself and tugs her arm free, pouring power into her spine again. _Calling on Wanheda’s strength_. She turns.

‘Clarke,’ Bellamy calls, and she turns, his arm still partly outstretched towards her. The pomegranate is grey again, lifeless. _Hers, not his_.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, and she really is. ‘I’ll see you later. Stay as long as you like.’

It’s only salt in her blistering, festering wound, but she nearly staggers when she turns.

There, marking the steps she’d taken towards finding him not so long ago, footprints of black, shrivelled, _dead_ growth point straight at her.

She runs.


	7. i kept raising hell (now they call me a queen)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> finally (hopefully) Bellamy gets some answers

The thing about Clarke taking him to the garden is that it really helps him _think_.

By the time he leaves, Bellamy feels like a video game character with a newly replenished health bar. He practically _bounces_.

And that’s what really throws him off. The more he thinks about it the less he can figure out. How can Clarke be both monstrous and the complete opposite of it? _Why_ would she be like that?

And what kind of kidnapper actively tries to help their charge? Unless he’s being fattened up for some weird ritual- which, well, he’s not really worried about _that_.

Needless to say, accepting that Clarke might not actually be the sickeningly evil shadow-demon he’d expected just creates more questions. Questions he can’t forget even for a second, because everywhere he looks all he can see is black and white and grey on grey on grey because _she’s not near him_.

And that’s really it, the final straw. Since when was seeing colour about _Clarke_ and not about returning to the surface?

He stays in the garden for a while, angsty and agitated. He doesn’t last long; he’s not exactly known for his patience and rationality at the best of times.

_Bellamy Impulsive Blake_ , he hears Octavia scold, buried too far back in his memory for his liking. _Watch your back for once in your goddamn life_.

Once he’s made his mind up and stormed off, it’s depressing to realise he has no idea how or where to find Clarke. He remembers Raven saying that she didn’t typically live in the big house, but he has no idea how to get to where she is. It’s a really irritating obstacle, and it makes him swear a lot.

He realises this and runs out of steam in the middle of some random corridor that he only vaguely recognises; with all the paintings and wall sconces, they all look more or less the same. It’s only when he stops and slumps down to squat against the wall that he realises he still has the pomegranate in his hand.

He thinks of the awed look on Clarke’s face as she stared at it- stared at _him_ \- and frowns.

He wages a short battle with the part of him that wants to chuck the damned thing at the wall and watch it splatter everywhere. Unsurprisingly, the re-fuelled nurturer in him won’t let his fingers release the fruit.

Instead he closes his eyes and breathes in deeply. Inhale through his nose, exhale through his mouth, just like Octavia’d taught him in her meditation phase.

(It helps him deal with the ache of missing her, too, with the worry gripping his heart with a tight fist.)

_Wanheda_ , he thinks, and there- dull, but there- he feels that pulse of hatred and anger and violence.

And then he thinks _Clarke_ and something hot curls in his chest instead. It doesn’t feel like hate and it doesn’t feel like the _opposite_ of hate, but it’s somewhere in the middle, at the very least.

He opens his eyes slowly and there, cradled in his muddy palms, like her name called it to life, the skin of the pomegranate reddens.

It’s only a blush, a shadow of colour- faint enough that it doesn’t even show up in his peripherals- but it’s enough to cement his resolve.

And when he looks up and scans the corridor, just at the edge of his vision- not for the first time that afternoon, he’s viciously glad he’s wearing his glasses- _there_. A smudge of yellow. He’s sure of it.

Trying not to feel too ridiculous, he shuffles towards it warily. By the time he’s reached the painting in question, the yellow has faded, but he’s still fairly sure it’s the rays of the sun arching across the canvas. He studies it for a moment and then cranes his head around the next corner.

This time, the smear of colour is green.

_Well,_ he thinks, _follow the fucking rainbow, Bellamy_.

And he does.

The door he eventually comes to is heavy and wooden, its bronze handle glimmering faintly russet- enough that he’s sure- surer than he’s been of anything in a while- that Clarke is on the other side of it.

Under his palm, it opens silently.

The history nerd in him leaps to life, his eyes flickering everywhere.

The room looks like some kind of ancient antechamber, pillars supporting the frescoed ceiling- he shifts his gaze away from the eerily beaming cherubs; they’ve always disconcerted him- and standing guard around a small pool in the centre of the room. It reminds him of an indoor courtyard.

The pool’s small, it’s surface still, not much larger than a bath, but with three marble steps leading down into it on all sides. Once he’s scanned it, he barely glances towards the rest of the room- fairly empty, he thinks.

Sitting on the steps, her back half turned to him so he can only see the silhouette of her face, her long black cloak trailing in the calm waters, is Clarke.

He steps closer and then, all of a sudden, the questions scalding his tongue and firing up his blood dissipate, and he falters.

Like the oddest television screen he’s even watched, the surface of the pool reflects a face up to him.

It’s a face he’d know anywhere, could pick out after thousands of years- and probably will. Freckled, fierce, burning eyes and a set to the jaw that he’s been told is genetic, he’ll always recognise his sister.

He only barely stops himself from groaning out her name, his curiosity winning out against the reflex.

Clarke dips her fingers in the water and draws something in the shallows, her eyes shadowed. The close-up of his sister’s face zooms out until he can see her whole body. He thinks of the first time he saw Clarke in her Wanheda attire, of how he thought of Octavia then. The dark clothes his sister wears now aren’t much different. There’s even a sword strapped across her back and braids- even more than Clarke wears- pull her long hair back from her face.

She looks like she’s braced for a fight. _No_ , Bellamy thinks, _like she’s gunning for one_.

It’s back with a wallop, missing her and fearing for her. So forceful that he’s not sure it ever faded.

‘Where is my brother?’ she snarls, and Bellamy’s so caught up in the sound of her voice that he doesn’t think about _how_ he’s hearing it. Her fingers delicately trace the grip of her weapon, teasingly threatening. There’s none of the sister dancing in the rain here, all of the wild thing screaming into the storm.

It’s a sickening realisation like a punch to the stomach. He’d known she’d worry- of course he had- but he hadn’t thought she’d go this far.

He should have known. All these years, and his biggest failing is always underestimating his little sister.

Because there, half hidden over Octavia’s shoulder, is a figure he knows well. Tall, rigid with authority, his beard scruffier than Bellamy’s seen it in a while, is Marcus.

_No_ , a voice in his head moans. _No_.

He knows what this means, what Marcus can do. He’s the most powerful of them all.

Octavia draws her sword, just a little, and someone else steps in front of her, just slightly. Bellamy’s heart calms mildly, and then speeds up again when he recognises the curve of his friend’s reassuring smile, the deliberately casual stance. _Miller_.

It’s the same good cop, bad cop routine he’s seen them pull a hundred times. Normally on him.

This feels _wrong_.

‘Kane,’ Miller says, his voice more carefully level than Octavia’s, as usual. ‘Please. He’s been gone for weeks. We just want to know where he is.’

Kane’s eyes are shadowed but his expression is carefully blank. ‘What makes you think I know where he is?’

Octavia snorts, her eyes practically spitting fire. He’s fiercely glad when Miller sends her a quelling look and she rolls her eyes, shoving her sword back into its sheath.

Miller turns back to Kane and his gaze holds all of Octavia’s scepticism. ‘Not much goes on that you don’t know about, Kane, and we all know it.’

‘Okay, then,’ Marcus considers the pair of them. ‘Even if I do know, what makes you think I’d tell you two?’

‘Because he’s my _brother_!’ Octavia bursts out, and Bellamy rocks forward on his heels, wanting to plunge into the pool and stop her.

Marcus doesn’t ruffle. ‘Exactly. I’m not about to mess up his intentions.’

Bellamy feels a sudden wave of respect for Marcus, sends him a silent thank you.

‘What does that even _mean_?’ Octavia retorts, scorn thickening her voice. ‘I don’t care about stupid intentions; I just want my brother back.’

Marcus’ expression doesn’t change. ‘It’s a lot more complicated than you imagine, child.’

_Shit_ , Bellamy thinks, and his panic returns in full force.

‘I am _not_ a child!’ Octavia explodes, and her sword is out and pointing at Kane before the man can blink. ‘And don’t you _dare_ presume to tell me what I do and don’t understand about my family.’

‘Octavia, put the sword down,’ Miller’s voice is sharp. ‘He isn’t going to help us with your sword at his throat.’

‘He might,’ Octavia grumps, but lets the tip of the sword drop minutely. Marcus’ gaze follows her rather than the weapon, shrewd and calculating. He and Bellamy have clashed countless times over the years, but Bellamy respects him, respects his intelligence. In this moment, he _prays_ to him.

He goes unanswered, unheeded.

‘There’s a curse,’ Kane says slowly, and Octavia and Miller let out a breath in unison. ‘You’ll know it. The disappearing girls?’

There’s a pregnant pause and then: ‘He’s in the _Underworld?_ ’ Miller cries, incredulous. ‘Shit.’

‘I’m going to _kill_ her,’ Octavia promises darkly, ‘I’m going to tear her Wan from her fucking Heda.’

Randomly, Bellamy wants to laugh.

Kane doesn’t seem to share the urge. ‘You will not touch the Queen of the Underworld, Octavia Blake. For heaven’s sake, surely you must realise there are forces bigger than you at work here.’

Octavia shrugs, and it’s every inch the teenager Bellamy suffered through. ‘Realise, sure. Care? Not so much.’

‘Tread carefully,’ Kane warns, his voice laden with threat. The room around them darkens; what looks like lightning flashes in the corner of Bellamy’s view.

There’s a silence where Octavia appears to be thinking. Miller steps forward, reaches for Kane’s hand and shakes it.

‘Thank you for your help, Marcus.’ Kane nods, his stormy gaze calming slightly on Bellamy’s best friend. ‘We’ll remember this. And I’m sure Bellamy will thank you greatly, when we get him back.’

Kane’s mouth quirks, and his voice is dry. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Nathan Miller.’

Miller opens his mouth to say something, and then blackness spreads out from his mouth and the surface of the water goes blank, reflective as a mirror but showing no familiar faces.

There’s a heavy pause.

‘I know you’re there, Bellamy,’ Clarke rasps, hoarse as if she’s trying to hide it, and her face turns towards him, her eyes glassy. ‘That rug- yeah, I know it’s hideous- looks more radiantly like vomit in putrid orange.’  

He doesn’t spare it even a cursory glance.

‘Why are you watching my sister?’

Her eyes are shadowed, hidden from him. ‘Marcus. He, uh, sent it to me. He’s- protective.’

‘Protective?’

Clarke shrugs. ‘My mother and him, they’ve had a thing for a while. He likes to work the parent angle sometimes.’

He fails to keep the disbelief from his voice. ‘He thinks you’re the one that needs protecting?’

‘It is not,’ Clarke says levelly, ‘just me that he is protecting.’

‘Okay, _enough_.’ Bellamy snaps, ‘I have had _enough_ of these vague half-answers and cryptic allusions of yours. This is my life too, now, and I _damn well want to know what I’m living_.’

She’s on her feet, her cloak and her hair whirling behind her like a storm. Her laugh is bitter.

‘But that’s exactly it, Bellamy. This isn’t a life; what we’re doing here isn’t living. We’re _existing_ , doing what we have to do- what _I_ have to do- to protect what needs protecting.’

Quietly, he steps forward, keeping his voice soft, as if not to startle her.

Her sigh is world-weary, and he can feel the heaviness of that world and all its responsibility in the stifling air of the room. His hand twitches, and he knows if he placed it on his chest, he’d feel his heart thudding just a little bit too fast underneath his fingers.

’I thought it wasn’t just your story to tell.’

Clarke’s eyes are resigned in a way that makes a twinge of fear flicker through him, makes him wonder if he really does want to know this.

‘I don’t think the two of you ever met, but, when we were children- when we knew each other before- me and Lincoln grew up together. My mother never approved- he hasn’t got any powers or affinities or anything beyond immortality and he was kind of an outcast. Anyway-‘ she shrugs again ‘-he was my friend. My only friend, after everyone realised what I was and my mother hid me away- she never said, but I think now she was trying to give me a few more years before I had to become _this._ My father was still alive back then, he brought Lincoln to me when he wouldn’t stop asking, when he saw what _I_ needed, not what the child of the Underworld did. My mother, she was so angry at all three of us when she found out. She didn’t do anything bad but, when you’re like her- like _us_ \- it’s hard to hide that kind of anger, especially to hordes of desperate immortals with nothing better to do than search for traces of the next child-ruler of the Underworld.’

She stops, and even over the sound of his pulse he can hear her loud swallow.

‘Needless to say, they came. They took me away, and’- her throat bobs, her voice rasps with remembered, never forgotten pain- ‘my father was caught in the crossfire. I- I lost myself, just for a moment, and people were dying. Lincoln was only trying to protect me- to _stop_ me- but it was confusing, it was _havoc_ and everything was a blur—he, uh, he killed someone.’

She clears her throat. ‘He killed a father. Cage Wallace’s father.’

He doesn’t know the man, but he knows the name. Knows the fear it’s supposed to induce, knows the disrespect that runs for Cage in their community. Knows his darkness.

‘Clarke,’ he says, soft, but she holds up a hand.

‘Let me get this out. So, yeah, we came here- Lincoln and I. And, for a few months, everything was fine. I mean, I was the new Queen of the Underworld, but, here, it wasn’t so bad. It was just a new kind of life- or at least, the next stage. Sure, there’s always been Tartarus and the proverbial ‘hell’-‘ she makes inverted commas in the air, darkly comic in a way that’s not at all funny- ‘but there were the good places, for the good people. For the little girls and the dogs. And all of a sudden, it was my job to protect them. To keep all of them safe and happy, forever, away from prying eyes, away from mortal and immortal understanding alike.’

‘And then Cage came for us, came for Lincoln. And before I’d even begun, before I was even properly _Queen_ , I’d failed, and Cage cursed us.’

She looks up at him, and her gaze is bleak. ‘The shadows, around Lincoln. They’re the curse. They’re what keep us in this goddamn black and white, what cloaks us in darkness and misery. And the girls, they _are_ sacrifices. Sacrifices to Lincoln, to the shadows, to the curse. Every time, they try to be with him because they’re _cursed_ to _want_ to, and then they go mad. The shadows drive the girls mad, the world above hates us, and we live in grey.’

‘And because of all that- because of those girls and what we do to them- that little corner of my world that hardly anyone alive even knows _exists_ , that pocket of the world of the dead lives in colour and peace and happiness. And the girls- every single one of them- stay there too.’

‘My people deserve colour, too, Bellamy. They deserve beauty. Just because they’re dead doesn’t mean they aren’t human.’

She stops.

To Bellamy, it feels like everything else stops with her.

If he thought the silence earlier was heavy, this one makes him feel like Atlas. Like Clarke has handed the weight of an entire world into his palms.

_Hasn’t she?_

Clarke’s gaze is heavy- tentative, resigned, wary- but it doesn’t waver, and he feels it down to his bones. Like a robot stirring, he comes back, his blood pumping again, his limbs re-hinging, his mind whirring. Assimilating. Re-calculating.

_But there’s not much to recalculate_ , he thinks, and he knows with a wave of relief that maybe this means that he and Clarke- they’re not on different sides anymore. That they never were.

That she trusts him, this much. With her people. With herself, with her family.

It’s a lot, but really, it’s not much at all. He’s not stupid, and he’s been around the block a few times himself. He knows a bad guy when he sees one.

Right now, looking at Clarke, all gold and blue and _light_ no matter how much black she wears, he’s struggling to see one. He’s not sure when he stopped looking, to be honest.

‘So,’ he says carefully, and Clarke’s stare is sharp as knives. ‘You’re a good guy?’

She rolls her eyes, the tension fizzing away slightly, but her tone is only half-teasing. ‘There are no good guys, Bellamy. I thought you’d know that by now.’

‘I’m not going to apologise,’ he starts, and she snorts.

‘Of course you’re not.’

He gives her a chastising look, the same Octavia would kick him in the shins for these days. ‘I _was going to say_ , I’m not going to apologise for how I reacted and for what I thought you were, but I am sorry that this happened. I’m sorry that this has happened to all of you, when you don’t deserve it.’

She inclines her head.

‘Lincoln,’ he all but whispers, but the shake of her head is undeniably fierce.

‘No,’ she bites, and the water behind her ripples with the unseen force of it. ‘I will not let him die, and I will not let him hurt himself.’

He feels a pang of shame, hot and murky, but shakes it off. It’s not _that_ unreasonable.

Clarke wilts, and lifts a hand to her face, leans into it. ‘He’s tried, okay? We’ve tried everything. There’s nothing we can do.’

‘I don’t believe that,’ he asserts, and is only mildly surprised at the steel coating it. He spreads his arms wide, an open shot. A sacrifice. ‘Look at me, Clarke. Look at me, and tell me you aren’t seeing at least some colour right now.’

He feels her eyes trace the length of his body with the light heaviness of fingertips. He absolutely does not swallow. He does not react at all.

‘That’s something,’ he says, and hates that he feels like he’s laying himself out there. That he’s the something he’s offering.

But he will not let her lay herself bare and not at least take a step towards her.

‘That’s something,’ she repeats, and the heat is back. This time, though, it does not feel like shame.

‘I know this is a ceasefire, or a truce, or something nice like that,’ he says, ‘but since you’re opening up and all, do you want to tell me why you’re snooping on my sister and my friends?’

She smiles, just a little. ‘Sorry. I, uh, was curious, after you were talking about her. I was going to show you- I thought you might feel better if you could check up on her.’

‘She needs more than checking up on; she needs a bloody keeper.’

‘Bellamy,’ Clarke scolds, but her eyes are dancing blue.

She pauses. ‘I’ve got to go- I need to talk to Raven about something- but when I’m back, I’ll show you how to use the pool.’

She’s walking towards him, and he can’t look away. Can’t think of anything else but her voice saying _that’s something_.

‘I’ll help you figure this out, Clarke. We’ll figure it out together.’

She’s stood exactly in front of him- equals- when she whispers: ‘Together.’

She might as well shout it.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s not as hard as he expects, finding his way back to the garden. He didn’t think it’d be difficult finding the pomegranate tree again either, and he’s not wrong.

Clarke’s nowhere near, but the fruit’s skin is still reddened with coral.

The seeds inside are a deeper, richer red.

He chews, and he swallows.

He chews, and he swallows.

He chews, and he swallows.

He chews, and he swallows.

He chews, and he swallows.

He chews, and he swallows.

Six times, he does it.

_Together,_ he thinks. And through it all, through the hammering in his skull and the confusion in his blood, all he can see is her.

Painted golden head to steel-pointed toe in vibrant, vital colour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you guys liked this- updates are taking a bit longer because the chapters are longer, and it's getting a bit more complicated! thanks for sticking with me xo


	8. it seems so obvious (that i should put an end to this)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> some more people crash the underworld

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long- again! it's been a manic few weeks (i graduated yooooo) but here ya go, at long last

The next day, he wakes up, and he knows. He knows, and he is fiercely, fiercely glad that he ate the pomegranates.

He’s glad he ate them, because whether it would actually keep him here or not, everyone will think that it does.

Octavia (and Miller) included.

It’s not the first time they’ve been on different sides over the years, but he doesn’t like it any more than the last time, or the time before that. Whether it’s for her own good or not, it never seems to work out exactly as he plans.

It’s Murphy that comes to get him and, although a small part of him feels a scrape of rejection that Clarke didn’t come herself, he knows she wouldn’t- couldn’t- leave, and he knows none of the others would leave her.

‘So,’ Murphy drawls against the frame when Bellamy yanks the door open, ‘it seems I’m not your only unexpected visitor today.’

Bellamy doesn’t reply, launching himself in the direction he knows is the right one.

He can feel her now, like a string of rainbow linking them through the maze of the house. It’s a pretty common trope, the ‘string-to-find-your-way’ thing ( _just ask Ariadne and Theseus_ ) and that makes him feel mildly less unsettled by it.

‘’ _What on earth do you mean, Murphy? You do say the most exciting things_!’’ Murphy sings mockingly, matching his stride to Bellamy’s.

‘Oh, well, Bellamy- thanks for asking, by the way,’ Murphy continues, ‘it turns out some of your folks have turned up, out of the blue. Isn’t that _weird_?’

He barely stops himself from growling in Murphy’s face.

‘So,’ Murphy says, conversational in a way that instantly puts Bellamy on edge. ‘Your sister. Is she hot?’

In a blink, Murphy’s against the wall, his hair thrown back and the angles of his face in sharp relief. A study of chiaroscuro.

He makes a tutting noise, almost gleeful, almost as if Bellamy’s arm can’t feel his Adam’s Apple bobbing when he swallows.

‘Tsk, tsk, Blake,’ he murmurs, and his eyes darken in a way that makes Bellamy suddenly wonder how Murphy ended up here. ‘I thought we were all friends now.’ The light in his eyes turns manic, predatory, and Bellamy leans into his arm a little more so Murphy’s voice rasps. ‘Or did you throw Clarke up against a wall as well?’

Bellamy growl _feels_ dangerous.

‘Is that it?’ Murphy crows, way too delighted for his current predicament. He shifts his hips closer to Bellamy’s, a crude mockery of a lover’s embrace. ‘You’re trying to fuck your way to freedom?’

He laughs mockingly, and _why can’t Bellamy say anything?_ ‘I’ll admit, none of those girls have ever tried _Clarke_ before. I admire your guts, Blake- I think.’

He leans closer, his lips brushing the shell of Bellamy’s ear, so at odds with the harshness of his carefully-honed words. ‘It won’t work, though, Bellamy. I don’t care how much you wax lyrical about the ‘tender blue’ of her eyes, it _won’t work_. Don’t you think we’ve all already tried?’

His voice cracks, and Bellamy shifts back, wanting to see the shadows in Murphy’s eyes for himself.

‘Murphy,’ Raven’s voice whips out like a crack, ‘shut up. Bellamy, get the hell off him.’

He flicks a glare at the girl, who only stares passively back. He presses into Murphy one last time just for the satisfaction of hearing his little choke, and then steps away.

‘Boys,’ Raven sighs, and rolls her eyes. ‘Don’t you know it’s rude to keep a girl waiting?’

‘I thought she was a queen,’ Murphy snarks as he follows her, straightening his shabby clothes.

Raven gives him a mild look, less disgusted than Bellamy’s would have been. ‘Are you _trying_ to prove my point, idiot?’

Murphy huffs, but falls silent.

Bellamy tries to do the same but, as usual- he’s not even surprised anymore- he fails.

‘It’s Octavia, isn’t it? And Miller. My friends.’

Even though he tries to keep his voice level, Raven’s eyes are as sharp as the bird of her namesake. She misses nothing, and he can’t help but respect that about her.

She sighs, gentling slightly. ‘Yeah, Blake. It’s your friends.’

 

* * *

 

 

He’s never been in a room that contains his sister and not have his eyes go to her first.

It’s a bright blue new.

Clarke meets his eyes straight away, too, like a reflex. It’s a jolt of relief to see her, resplendent in sharp colour against the backing smudges of grey.

_She looks nervous_ , Bellamy thinks, and his steps quicken a beat, the faster to get to her side.

It’s only when he silently reaches her that he realises- _how did he forget?_ \- what the supposed threat is.

He lifts his head to face the room, and there they are.

The full force of his sister slams into him, and he grunts. ‘Bell,’ she whispers, and his heart stutters, his arms reaching up to hug her back just as fiercely.

Her mahogany hair might be braided with black, her skin the same grey as his, but her face on his shoulder is the same. His name on her lips is the same.

They’re family, and nothing can take that away.

Over her shoulder, he watches Miller. He watches the almost silent ‘fuck’ fall from his lips, watches his ramrod posture slump minutely. Watches relief merge with despair.

Octavia suddenly shoves back from him, her eyes gleaming but her face screwed into a scowl. She punches him in the shoulder, hard.

‘Ow,’ he says mildly, and rubs the spot. ‘Nice to see you too, O. Hey, Miller.’

Octavia punches him again, and he dodges to one side to avoid her fist.

‘What the _hell_ , Bellamy?’ Octavia demands.

‘Literally.’ From behind him and Clarke, someone snorts. He thinks it might be Murphy.

Octavia frowns, her body rocking backwards and forwards like it does when she feels cornered, when she doesn’t know what to do with her anger. ‘This isn’t a fucking _joke_ , Bellamy.’

Bellamy opens his mouth but before he can say anything, Miller steps forward. ‘She’s right, Bellamy. We’ve been looking for you for weeks.’

‘Weeks?’ he repeats, and does not miss how Clarke avoids his eyes when he turns to her.

‘Weeks,’ Miller echoes grimly. ‘What’s going on, Bellamy?’

Everytime they say his name, it hits him like a blow.

‘Why are you here?’ Miller continues. ‘Why haven’t we heard from you? _Why are you looking at us like that_?’

‘I-‘ The only thing he can think to do is to close his eyes. The coward, just when everyone needs him.

‘The real question,’ Octavia snarls, and her voice is harsh enough that he snaps his gaze back to her, ‘is why you’re looking at _her_ like that.’

It’s then that Bellamy realises that Clarke hasn’t said anything, nothing at all.

‘What have you done to my brother?’ Octavia demands, and before Miller or anyone else can stop her, she’s launching herself- sword somehow in front of her- at Clarke.

For a second, the room erupts. Clarke is suspiciously silent, but he hears Jasper and Monty shout, knows Raven rushes forward with her arms outstretched. Even Miller calls out.

It’s only when the sudden outburst fades that Bellamy realises that he’s stood directly in front of Clarke, that his sister’s sword is brandished at his chest.

With Clarke behind him, he can’t see any colour. He doesn’t need it to see the shades of despair and anger and loss flush Octavia’s expression.

‘Bellamy,’ she says, and her voice splinters in the middle. ‘Get out of my way.’

He shakes his head slowly, watches the tip of her sword tremble minutely when he does. ‘I’m so sorry, O.’

‘Bellamy,’ Miller barks, ‘tell us what is going on, _right now_.’

Just as he swallows, he feels it. Although no one else in the room could see it, Clarke’s palm presses, warm and reassuring, below his tense shoulder blades. _You’re not alone_.

_Together_ , he hears again, and it’s enough.

‘I can’t leave with you,’ he says simply. Miller’s lips purse; Octavia’s fall open.

‘Bell-‘

‘I can’t come with you,’ he interrupts, ‘because I’m needed here. I know you don’t trust them and I get that- believe me, I get that- but I need you to trust me. This is important.’

‘Is this about her?’ Octavia scoffs, and waves her sword in Clarke’s direction like it’s a pencil not a sharply weapon. ‘Bellamy, come on.’

‘This is not,’ Bellamy states, clear and loud and firm, ‘just about Clarke.’

Octavia stares at him, and it’s Miller that steps to her side, his eyes shrewd but his body tense. ‘Clarke?’

‘He means _her_ ,’ Octavia’s voice is disgusted when she turns away from him. The sight of her turned back goes through him like her sword nearly did. ‘The Queen.’

‘There are things going on here that you don’t understand,’ Bellamy implores, hearing the echo of Clarke’s voice in his own.

‘Why does everyone keep saying that to me?!’ Octavia explodes. ‘Just explain then, dammit.’

Bellamy meets Miller’s gaze, but the other boy shrugs.

He sighs. ‘I can’t.’

‘Bellamy Blake,’ his sister swears, her tone ominous. ‘I don’t care if you’re bigger than me, I’ll drag you out of here by your hair if I have to.’

‘No,’ Clarke’s voice rings out, indisputable. ‘You won’t. You can’t.’

Octavia looks unimpressed.

‘He’s eaten here,’ Clarke announces like it means something, like she’s a queen fed up of bickering. ‘Six pomegranate seeds.’

‘He’s eaten here,’ Clarke repeats. ‘Therefore, he can’t leave. He’s one of us.’

‘Bullshit,’ Octavia bites out, and Bellamy’s heart sinks. ‘I’m not swallowing that crap for one minute.’

‘It’s true, O,’ he confirms, and hates the doubt that flickers in her eyes. He doesn’t think about _how_ Clarke knows that.

It’s Miller that says his name. ‘We’re not leaving without you.’

His heart- all the broken, aching parts of it- cracks further.

His answering voice is a whisper. ‘You have to.’

Octavia’s sword slams into the floor, buries itself into it like it’s slicing through nothing more solid than butter. The hilt shivers. ‘I don’t _have_ to do anything.’

He knows that tone. Right now, he fears it.

‘Octavia,’ he warns.

Miller raises his chin, his eyes defiant, but it’s Octavia he’s watching keenly. She steps forward, spreads her arms wide like she’s about to leap into flight.

_She’s about to leap into_ something _,_ a voice in Bellamy’s head murmurs, and his stomach lurches sickeningly.

‘Octavia, wait-‘

‘It’s me, isn’t it?’ She calls, her cold eyes focused over his shoulder now. On Clarke. ‘That’s why he’s here. Kane told us about the curse. You wanted me, didn’t you? And you got my idiot brother instead.’

She laughs humourlessly.

‘Well, I’m here now. Take me. Right your wrongs. I know you never wanted my brother, so give him back. Give him back and take me.’

He spins to face Clarke in an instant.

‘Don’t you dare.’

He knows his voice is deadly, feels the ripple through their audience. _That is not how one speaks to a queen_.

Clarke’s eyes are chips of ice when she looks at him; they say the same thing.

‘No,’ she says simply, and relief weakens Bellamy’s limps.

‘I said I’m not leaving here without my brother,’ Octavia says, undeterred. ‘I meant it. If he stays, I stay.’

Miller grunts something that could echo her sentiment.

‘ _No_ ,’ Bellamy growls, and watches Clarke’s expression harden.

‘You think I couldn’t kick you out of here in an instant if I wanted to? Couldn’t sentence you to the darkest depths of Tartarus on my tiniest whim?’ She hums. ‘Actually, that does appeal.’

But Bellamy, Bellamy is watching her eyes. Never stopped.

_She’s doing this for me_ , he thinks, and he knows it’s true. She’s being the monster because she thinks it’s how she can help him help his sister.

Her hair flares with gold, sun bright.

‘Bring it on, bitch,’ Octavia snarls, and Clarke smirks.

‘ _Stop_ ,’ a voice commands, and Bellamy purses his lips. He is _not_ in the mood for another interloping surprise.

In the resounding silence, Bellamy realises who it is. There aren’t many people Clarke would let command her.

Lincoln steps out of the shadows- or, more accurately, brings them with him. He cuts an imposing figure against all the blackness, his tattoos swirling and shifting in agitation across his broad, bare chest. His mouth, too, keeps twisting, as if he’s waging a battle with himself.

Clarke’s head cocks to one side. ‘Yes, Lincoln?’

The room pauses for a moment; Bellamy doesn’t think anyone moves.

And then Lincoln says, like it doesn’t shatter him: ‘Let them stay.’

‘ _What_?’ Bellamy’s voice cracks out like a whip, and he hears Raven and Monty and Jasper _and_ Murphy all echo him. ‘What?’

Octavia and Miller, at least, are silent.

Clarke searches Lincoln with her gaze and, just barely, shifts her head to summon him closer. He obeys, moving so close that his shadows coil around Clarke, almost like they’re bowing.

Lincoln clears his throat, but his voice is still whisper-quiet when he speaks. Bellamy’s not sure anyone stood further away would be able to hear him.

‘Let them stay, Clarke.’

Clarke’s eyebrows raise. ‘I assume you’ve got a reason for this?’

Lincoln clears his throat again, shuts his eyes. ‘Clarke. Clarke, her eyes are brown.’

Bellamy does not have to wonder whose eyes he’s talking about.

He thinks about Clarke saying _the shadows drive the girls mad_ and his blood drains entirely out of his body.

‘ _No_ ,’ he states, unsure if his voice is crystal clear or as broken as smashed glass.

Clarke’s sigh is heavy and her gaze, when she turns back to him, is apologetic.

He’s half aware of Miller and Octavia shifting curiously behind him, but he can’t bear to look. ‘Clarke, please.’

Her eyes shutter. ‘I kept you, Bellamy. How can I say no to this?’

Desperation rises up in his throat. ‘Easily, Clarke. No, no, no- just like that.’

Her swallow is audible to him, stood so close. ‘I swear to you, we’ll keep her safe. Keep both of them safe.’

He clenches his jaw so hard it hurts, stares at her so hard she flinches.

‘Well,’ Murphy’s voice sounds from somewhere close by, ‘here we go again.’


	9. your lipstick's smudged like a pure work of art

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PUPPIESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> full disclosure: i don't know why i did it like this- tenses confuse the hell out of me

When Bellamy thinks about it, the three-headed puppies aren’t even the weirdest bit.

Not in the slightest.

He’d stormed off after the incidents in Clarke’s throne room, his whole body lit with a heat that burnt any nice, friendly thought from his mind.

After about three circuits of the huge house, he’d stomped the heat out and just felt mildly petulant.

He’d had a vague notion that Clarke’d been near throughout, so it wasn’t much of a surprise when he’d turned a corner and seen her waiting for him.

What _did_ surprise him was the way she’d been sat, her legs crouched as she slumped, squatted really, against the wall for balance. It was so _casual_.

_She’s just a girl_ , he’d reminded himself, and wasn’t sure if the thought made him feel better or worse, more nervous or less.

She’d smiled, wide, and he’d thought: _definitely more_.

‘I thought,’ she’d said, ‘that someone who might be the so-called ‘saviour’ might fancy some down time?’

Her voice shook minutely, just tentative enough that he could tell that she was nervous too. _That_ thought definitely made him feel better, and he’d given her a rueful smile.

He’d cocked his head to one side, his voice deliberately, forcefully light. ‘If I take advantage of ‘saviour’ benefits, does that constitute acceptance of the job?’

Her answering smile was lopsided but true.

‘Since it’s just me, I’ll hold off on the contract.’

They hadn’t spoken while they’d walked, Bellamy still smarting and Clarke apparently lost in thought.

She’d led him downstairs into slightly rougher, less intricately decorated corridors, where the rubber soles of his shoes slapped against stone floors instead of carpets and the walls flickered with low, orange light.

She’d stopped suddenly just short of a tall door hewn out of stained wood, her fingers pausing on the door handle.

‘You’ve not got any, er, allergies, have you?’

He’d stared at her baldly. ‘Are you asking me if I’ve got hayfever? _Me?_ ’

She’d blushed a rich red. ‘Yeah, okay. Whatever.’

He couldn’t help smirking; when her lips had quirked, he’d wondered if that’d been her aim all along.

She’d started to move, then paused again, her nails scraping at a fleck of yellow pain above the handle.

‘I forgot what colour this was, before,’ she’d murmured, her touch almost reverent.

‘You paint?’ he’d asked gruffly, and then remembered the charcoal smudges on the hem of her dress the first time he’d seen her. He’d remembered the paintings along the walls, what Raven had said about her not painting since they’d lost colour. ‘Raven said you’d stopped.’

She’d shrugged and her hair had fallen forward, not quite able to disguise the crimson lingering on her cheeks. ‘I’ve used charcoal, and sketched. Lately I-uh, I’ve tried a bit of paint again.’

‘Lately, huh?’ His smile had widened, his eyebrows rising in amusement. ‘Am I a _muse_ , on top of everything else?’

She’d tossed him a glance and shoved the door open. ‘Shut up, Blake.’

The room beyond the door was a surprise, high wooden ceilings and bare walls, pens dividing the room into even rectangular sections. It was- incongruently- an old barn, down to the smell of hay and _animal_.

All the pens but one- the largest- were empty.

Clarke’d stomped towards it in her boots and swung her legs over the gate without hesitation. Her blonde head had dipped as she’d knelt.

The yelps that this engendered were his first clue.

When he’d walked up to the pen, Clarke had looked up at him, her arms full of wriggling fur and her eyes defiantly ablaze.

‘I don’t care what you say, Mr. Nature-Know-It-All,’ she’d announced archly, ‘these are the cutest, smartest, prettiest puppies in all the land.’

And Bellamy had looked down at the four puppies crowding Clarke, tails wagging madly as they licked her face and black coats gleaming, and not been inclined to disagree.

Three heads and all.

‘Baby Cerberus’?’ He’d asked, and frowned. ‘Cerberae? Cerberai?’

Clarke’d looked at him flatly. ‘Don’t you decline my puppies.’ She’d scratched one of the puppies on the scruff- where all three necks seemed to fuse into one- and cooed. When she’d turned back to Bellamy, still stood in place, she’d added. ‘Cerberus was the first. These little guys are his descendants.’

And so he looks from the puppies to the Queen of the Underworld quite literally crouched before them- before _him-_ and _no_ , the three heads are really not the weirdest bit.

What’s weird is how he doesn’t hesitate to climb over to squat beside her, how he opens his palms flat as he reaches for the first head that turns towards him, how he’s- almost literally- in the lion’s den and he doesn’t feel an iota of fear or despair or wrongness because of the girl sat beside him. A girl he knows he’s mad at, knows has only not been his enemy for a few _days_ , but still feels like the header to his ‘To Trust’ list right now.

What’s weird is that he’s here at all, and that he’s completely okay with that fact.  

The puppies clearly don’t sense any weirdness, at all. One bounds straight over to Bellamy, two wet noses sticking under his armpit while the other licks his jaw enthusiastically. Another is more conflicted- the middle head, complete with patch of white fur over one gleaming eye, seems to control the front paws and clambers eagerly into his lap while the other two heads, entirely black and entirely warier, eye him nervously, growling lightly.

‘That’s Daisy,’ Clarke says, nodding to the puppy trying to climb onto his head and getting confused by his curls and then gesturing towards the warier puppy tentatively prodding his lap. ‘That’s Daphne. This gorgeous gal here is Diana’- she moves as if to rub noses with the puppy she’s cradling- ‘and that- that’s Keith.’

Bellamy stares between the puppy in question and the queen in question, disbelieving. ‘Clarke. Please tell me _why_ you called a puppy- soon to be the fearsome defender of the entrance to the Underworld- Keith. Indisputably one of the worst names spawned by the English Language.’

Keith, totally ignorant of the insult laid at his door, seems to be fighting himself. The left and right heads both seem to be determinedly trying to chase their wagging tail- in opposite directions. It’s probably the most unusual tug-of-war Bellamy’s ever seen. The middle head, in contrast, looks sleepily resigned.

‘I like an underdog,’ Clarke says defensively, ‘Literally. Besides, look at him. He’s a Keith.’

Bellamy scoffs. ‘Well, of course he is! Now he’s got to play up to the name!’

Clarke scowls lightly and reaches to distract Keith, to tug him closer. ‘Shh, Keithy, don’t you listen to that mean boy. You’re still my favourite.’

At this stage, he’s not surprised to realise that he’s smiling, without even thinking about it. The warmth filling him from his boots feels like what the colour of Clarke’s hair looks like. Keith flops a bit in her arms, dopey and dazed from all the attention and all the confusion, and Bellamy knows how he feels.

He imagines he’d probably feel the same if Clarke held _him_ that close.

He wishes she would, if he’s being honest with himself.

If he’s _completely_ honest, the thought isn’t even a surprise anymore.

Clarke’s quiet over the sound of the puppies’ excited panting, staring intently into each of Keith’s adoring faces. ‘I am sorry about Octavia,’ she admits eventually, barely louder than a whisper, and he stiffens as his stomach curdles in a way that all the puppies in the world can’t calm. ‘All I can say is, he is to me what she is to you. And, Bellamy’- she meets his eyes, sky blue and imploring ( _maybe there’s something that can settle his stomach, after all_ )- ‘if there’s even a chance of a chance that we can end this, I have to take it.’

His posture, his tone, remains stiff. ‘I get that, Clarke, I do. I just don’t see why you need to risk her safety when I’m already here, and already on side.’

She shrugs helplessly. ‘The curse is on Lincoln, too; maybe it’s him who needs to see the colour more.’

Bellamy grunts and Clarke smiles, with affection but without humour. ‘I realise that kind of invalidates your whole purpose here-‘

‘Try existence,’ he adds drily.

‘He won’t hurt her,’ she murmurs, the picture of earnestness.

‘You can’t _know_ that,’ he says, low and fierce.

‘I can,’ she replies, just as fierce. ‘I trust him completely and-‘ she falters and looks down again, her hair tigering yellow stripes across Keith’s back- ‘him and I, we’re the same about this stuff. And I- I couldn’t hurt you. Not even at the start.’

He looks down, too, at his long fingers twisting in Daphne’s warm fur. ‘My whole purpose here, it’s not invalidated. I know you’re all strong and powerful in your own right, and have apparently an endless supply of Bellamy-Feel-Good Tactics but, still. I know I came to save Octavia, Clarke, but I stayed to save you.’

Her gaze is open, endless, stretches as wide as the moment between them.

‘And the others,’ he says hastily. ‘Not that I’m doing the _best_ job at any of these savings but, yeah. Really not doing so good with the whole ‘my sister, my responsibility’ thing.’

‘We should go,’ Clarke breathes suddenly, without even blinking. ‘I think it’s naptime.’

‘Oh,’ Bellamy says, surprised despite himself. He looks around at the puppies sprawled around them. About fourteen heads in total are asleep; Keith is snoring softly from where he collapsed, propped against Clarke’s side. She lowers him to the floor gently, kissing his head. ‘Sorry.’

Clarke says nothing as she stands, brushing dog hairs off her clothes briskly. She steps smartly out of the pen, glancing at him briefly. He can’t read her gaze. ‘Look alive, Blake.’

‘Jeez, okay,’ he grumbles, following her and stomping over to the door. He stops when he realises that he looks like a petulant toddler, just barely.

All pouting sullenness, he reaches the door first. ‘Now who’s the slow-coach? Hypocrisy is not your best trait, Princess.’

He hasn’t even turned all the way around before Clarke hits him.

His arms go up instinctively to catch her- to catch her against _him_ \- and for one endless, spell-bound minute she breathes her clear, citrus scent into him across the whisper-divide between their mouths. Her eyes are suddenly right there, all he can see and wider than ever and he never thought blue could burn hot but it is, she is, _they are_.

And he’s not sure if it’s him or her who breaches that final gap but she’s kissing him and he’s kissing her and his skin shifts places and his bones swap their joints and his blood changes direction and whatever else happens, he knows that his heart is never going to come back from the direction it’s just leapt.

Kissing Clarke is not like kissing anyone else. She’s warm and soft and moulds to him, pouring into his arms until she’s filled every gap between them, but also strong and intense and holding him against the shut door with her weight, as if she’s pre-emptively trying to stop him from pushing away, like he ever could. Like he’d ever, ever want to stop this.

He sweeps his arms up her back, tangling in the ends of her sunlight hair to drag her closer, closer, closer, and maybe kissing should be like flying but he’s a child of the earth and dizzying heights are overrated because, honestly, he's never felt so wonderfully, perfectly grounded, like his feet could sprout roots right here and he’d never even feel the need to move. Like life and energy and _hope_ stretches in starbursts around their feet.

She’d hit him like a wave, and he is happy to drown.

Her tongue flicks against his and he bites her lip, just hard enough for her to gasp into his mouth.

‘Shut _up_ , Bellamy,’ she whispers against his lips, and he honestly doesn’t think he could remember a single word right now, never mind articulate it. ‘How was I supposed to kiss you with four sleepy puppies in the way?’

It’s probably- _definitely_ \- the best fourteen words anyone has ever said to him; what else can he do but kiss her, again and again and again and _again_?

He doesn’t lift his head; he doesn’t have to to know.

Everything was technicolour.

**Author's Note:**

> let me know what you think! (i'm on tumblr at here-isthedeepestsecret) xo


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